---

Carter Review (Legal Aid)

The Chairman of the Committee is right, but the NAO report, as I am sure he is aware, found that 33 per cent.—one third—of legal aid recipients said that they had not been made aware that mediation was an option, even though there is a statutory requirement to consider referring cases to mediation. If the Government are paying legal aid lawyers to do a necessary job of work for people with family law cases that are being brought before the courts, we should at the very least require them to do what they are statutorily bound to do—to advise clients in most cases to try mediation. Of course, there will be some cases of domestic violence in which that would not be appropriate. The NAO, in its report, recommends that the Legal Services Commission should ““actively promote mediation””. Will the Minister say what action is being taken to give substance to the NAO’s recommendations? I believe that more radical change is needed than the Government or the Committee is considering. I would like the Government to consider contracting out management of legal aid to not-for-profit bodies, which have their clients’ interests at heart and which would benefit from maximising the number of clients who receive advice for the money available. I know that that is done in part by contracting services out to citizens advice bureaux, but why is that not done also to National Family Mediation or possibly to the Refugee Council? I have been lobbied by solicitors in York to sign early-day motion 537, tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz). I studied the motion closely, but decided not to put my name to it because I took the view that it was tabled on behalf of the producer interest—that of the Law Society—and that it took too little account of the public interest, the interests of members of the public, including my constituents, who pay for the service through taxation. However, I have talked with solicitors in York and examined their concerns in great detail and I agree with other hon. Members that the solicitors working in this area have some real concerns that need to be addressed and some constructive proposals about how to deal with those concerns. I know that time is at a premium, so I shall be brief. I wrote on 1 June 2007, on behalf of Kevin Blount, a solicitor in my constituency, to the Minister’s predecessor, who is now the Solicitor-General, to make the case that the Legal Services Commission should allow lawyers in a wider range of rural areas to claim for travel in addition to their fees. That is necessary because if the LSC continues to include travel in fees, that will lead to fewer remand prisoners seeing a solicitor before they appear in court and that could be costly in terms of court time and lead to an overall increase in expenditure. In addition—this follows a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North about waiting time in court—including waiting time in a bundled fee will, in my view, place lawyers in the unreasonable position of having to bear the cost for court or police failures to process cases efficiently. I look forward in due course to the Minister’s reply in writing to the letter that I have sent to her Department and I look forward to her response to the debate. I say to my colleagues, who, by and large, appear not to share my view about this matter, that reform of the legal aid system is necessary. Additional money may well be necessary. The hon. and learned Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr. Cox) made the point that the Government are bringing more criminals to court—there are more cases in front of courts—and therefore there is greater pressure for criminal legal aid. I accept that point, but to see the answer simply as more money would be a grave mistake and not in the service of the public.