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Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. We have had the expertise of the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, and the noble Lord, Lord Low, both of whom are experts on the disabled and the problems that they face. I am also very grateful to my noble friend Lord Howarth and the noble Lord, Lord Martin of Springburn, for their very knowledgeable contributions on this matter, and not least to the Minister for what he has had to say. This is one of the central and most important debates of this whole Bill. It goes to the very heart of what the Government are seeking to do, which is effectively to ask whether social welfare law will survive in our jurisdiction. We currently have a system of social welfare law that we can be proud of. It is not perfect; it makes mistakes and it probably does not have enough money spent on it but it is not a bad system, where not-for-profit organisations around the country—CABs, law centres, other advice centres and some Law Society solicitors—do wonderful work at very low rates, giving advice to the most vulnerable, the disabled and the poorest in our country. The issue is whether claimants will continue to get the advice that they have been entitled to in the past—because there has been a consensus of the political classes of all the parties that that is the proper way for a mature legal system to behave—which helps them decide whether or not they have a case when they are dealing with the state. Without that advice, how will these people get to the tribunal in the first place? The Minister quoted the president of the Social Entitlement Chamber of the First-tier Tribunal. Is that the same president who has publicly said that he is appalled at the prospect of more and more claimants coming before his tribunals who have not had the benefit of any legal advice? Access to advice is going to be more essential in the years to come than in the past because of the reforms that have been made to the welfare and benefits system. The CAB, a most respected organisation and one which the Prime Minister himself frequently praises as an example of how British life should carry on, has produced a briefing for noble Lords for tonight's session. I will quote from a couple of places. It states: "““It appears to us that the policy intent of this legislation as regards much social welfare law, is that legal aid funded specialist advice should be collapsed into non-legal aid funded generalist advice thus obliterating the distinction. We do not agree with this approach, as in our experience those without specialist welfare benefits knowledge struggle to put together coherent review requests or appeals with no input at all from independent specialist welfare rights advisers””." It goes on to say that, "““we do not recognise the scenarios presented by Government that the Tribunal is 'user friendly' and suited to those with the lowest literacy levels, serious disabilities, experiencing financial hardship or other vulnerabilities, progressing their own case without any professional advice. It is often only through advice on the appeals procedure, that many cases will ever get to considering points of law before the tribunal””." The CAB finishes its briefing to all noble Lords with this sentence: "““We therefore support Lord Bach's proposed amendment which would establish such clarity on the face of the Bill””." All this amendment does is to ask that the present system—as far as giving early legal advice to those who seek it because they have problems in the field of social welfare law and, in particular, welfare benefits—should continue, and that such advice should not be taken from these people. The Government's proposals are immoral because they have chosen to pick a fight with the poorest. I argue that it is unconstitutional because it is an attack on those people's access to justice. Where else can they get justice if they cannot get it through legal aid advice? The worst crime of all is that it is financially absurd. The small sum that the ministry might save by not giving legal aid for this advice will be overwhelmed by the sum that the state will have to pay out when things go wrong—when families break down, people lose their jobs and debts get worse. This is a very important point. For the Lord Chancellor to describe it as relatively low priority only goes to show that although we have been debating these matters for months, he and some of his ministerial colleagues—although not the noble Lord, Lord McNally—just do not get it. They do not get the value of this particular part of our legal system. In the end, the question is what sort of a country do we want to live in? Do we want to live in a country where the most hard-pressed, the poorest, the most vulnerable and the disabled are actually helped by the legal system when the time is appropriate—when they need help it is there, and we provide it through pretty cheap legal aid—or do we want to live in a country where that just does not happen? We are in danger of moving backwards in this field, where the poorest and the most vulnerable—who this House has always been concerned to do its best for—will suffer. I ask the House, with all the passion that I have, to support the amendment in my name. Division on Motion G1 Contents 159; Not-Contents 197. Motion G1 disagreed. Motion G agreed. Motion H Moved by