---

Legal Aid

I shall pay due heed to that, Sir Nicholas. I declare an interest, in that I am a practising criminal solicitor. I should also like to add to the list of visits for the Minister. If she would care to join me on a duty period at Enfield magistrates court or at a police station any time and see the reality, she would be very welcome. The Minister said that we need to look at the reality now. I encourage her to do that and to bear with me. She said, boldly, that the proposals are not a cost-cutting exercise and do not affect the vulnerable, but she has heard from Labour Members and other hon. Members how plainly that is not the case for a range of issues. The practitioners and the experts on the ground have also said that she is misdirected and not in touch with reality, which I say with due respect to her experience in publicly funded work. I should like briefly to consider the reality now, because we are not simply dealing with challenges to publicly funded work over recent months, during the Carter review or following other proposals. We must consider the context of the past few years. This debate is quite properly about the future of legal aid. Small and high street practitioners, particularly those in areas of great need and who deal with vulnerable defendants, have already had to ask what the future of legal aid is. Many had come up with an answer even before the implementation of Carter—that there is no future and that, as I said in an earlier intervention, the writing is on the wall. Despite the Minister’s quoting various figures about the lower fees that will be increased under the proposals, a number of practitioners in Enfield and Hertfordshire have had to give up publicly funded work in recent years, particularly in family law and immigration. There is also no publicly funded education solicitor in Enfield to deal with such work. That is a direct result of the lack of proper pay increases and the Government’s intentions. In the past two months, two firms of solicitors have given up publicly funded work in crime. Those firms are well known for providing a good service, which goes beyond the fee structure. They care for clients and are part of the system of criminal justice that provides the integrity that is much admired not only in this country but further afield. Those two firms have seen, to use the Minister’s words, the direction of travel, which is certainly not in the interests of the vulnerable or of a proper service. To stay with crime, if the Minister is so sensitive to publicly funded work and to the consultation results and seeking to modify Carter, why is she not then sensitive to the fact that lower court costs have been under control for some years? Her Department has confirmed that there is that control, which is quite remarkable given the escalating costs of legal aid. There has been a control over lower court costs in crime for some time, which is not surprising in many ways, because quality control has been there for some time. It has been carried out by many solicitors without the need for the Legal Services Commission’s eye. No doubt the contracting regime of franchising has brought rigours with it. As I know from being part of that process, as we have ticked the boxes and sought to convince Legal Services Commission of the quality of our service, there has been a control, which has had an impact. Indeed, it can be seen from the Department’s figures that there is the necessary control in place. Why then does the Minister say that we still need to prove efficiency? Does efficiency still need to be proved in lower court costs and in magistrates courts’ work? How many more hoops do criminal solicitors need to jump through? We are now into the area peer review, and there are certainly further hoops to come under Carter. The cynical might say that the early suggestion that there should be a 100-firm reduction in London—effectively, a brutal cull—is, in fact, what is happening. They might say that, under the premise of weeding out those who do not provide the quality service that we all want, the reduction is not so much a weeding out as a driving out of many firms. That is indeed what is happening. A number of firms are giving up on publicly funded work, particularly lower courts work, although we must also consider what is to follow. When the Minister talks about seeking proof of efficiency, many on the ground would say that proof of lower costs is what she really wants. That is the reality that I ask here to reflect upon. The Minister has already reflected on one of the major impacts that has been felt over the years. In the debate in Westminster Hall on 26 October 2005, she referred to the profound effects of legislation and to the impact that has been referred to by my hon. Friends and by other hon. Members. On that occasion, she referred to the target of 1.25 million offenders being brought to justice by 2008, which represents an increase of 150,000 on 2003 levels. She made no reference to the impact on defence legal aid as a result of that. She said:"““The point is a pretty simple one: no one seems to cost the implications for defence legal aid of new legislative change. That is silly.””—[Official Report, Westminster Hall, 26 October 2006; Vol. 438, c. 73WH.]"