---

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

My Lords, I listened carefully to what the Minister said and I am afraid that I am not satisfied that the arrangements she explained are anything like adequate to deal with the more difficult cases that will be presented to those on the telephone lines. Indeed, the problem is that they will not be presented at all. As one who spent a large part of his early days in the law trying to help ordinary people with their so-called ordinary problems, I know that there is much greater difficulty in getting instructions from inarticulate, anxious or unconfident people than well intentioned, middle-class people can believe. It is simply unrealistic to say that when vulnerable people come on the phone there will be sympathetic people to direct them here, there or somewhere else because they will never get on the phone. The reason is that today the law is so complicated that the kind of people I am thinking about will never get to the point of understanding, in articulate terms or with any clarity, what their problem is. The only chance of them getting to that point will be if they get before a sympathetic person, in a sympathetic context, who has the skill—and it takes skill—to coax out of them just what is the problem. Everyone sitting in this place may say, ““Well, for Pete's sake, they all go to school and have got technology that can do this and do that””, but at least 10 per cent of our fellow citizens are not in that category—they are the most needy people—and a system which fails the most needy 10 per cent is simply unacceptable. I do not mind how many reviews we have about this, this system will not work for those people. I know it. I worked with the Samaritans for years, and every Samaritan knows that for every one person who comes on the telephone there are many more who never even get that far. I am afraid to say that I shall be in opposition to the Government's response to Amendment 24, the beauty of which was that it was the Lord Chancellor's duty to deal with people's needs by a range of forms. Such a system would be much more flexible. Indeed, the Minister, quite rightly, said that the need for every person to have face-to-face advice, as is required by subsection (a) of the proposed new clause in Amendment 24B, is too inflexible. However, by the same token, her argument that every case will be dealt with by telephone is too monopolistic and will not work for a very important slice of the population. I ask all noble Lords to think of someone they know who does not have the confidence to speak up, the analytical ability to know quite what their problem is and certainly does not have the confidence to use this facility, well intentioned though it is. I hope the Minister will reflect on what I have said and, if she doubts me, talk to others who know more than I. Perhaps she will say in summing up what is now the position with the CABs and law centres. At least they have the facility for people to go in and meet other members of the public who work voluntarily for the CAB and have time. It can often take half an hour to find out what the problem is. Is the funding of CABs and law centres now assured so that they can do that?