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Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Motion J concerns legal aid for children. When the Government undertook their comprehensive review of legal aid, we looked at the principles of each type of case funded by the scheme and considered, first, the importance of the issue; secondly, the litigant's ability to present their own case, including and especially any vulnerability; thirdly, the availability of alternative sources of funding; and, fourthly, the availability of other routes to resolution. We have used those principles to prioritise funding so that civil legal services will be available in the highest-priority cases—for example, as my noble friend Lord McNally said earlier, where people's life or liberty is at stake, where they are at risk of serious physical harm or immediate loss of their home, or where children may be taken into care. The application of these principles led us to protect the vast majority of funding in cases involving children. These include family cases where a child is at risk of abuse; child care and supervision cases; civil claims concerning the abuse of a child; special educational needs cases; clinical negligence claims concerning brain-damaged babies; cases concerning the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court in respect of children; cases concerning the unlawful removal of children from the UK; cases concerning EU and international agreements on children; and legal aid for children who are made parties to private family proceedings. That is why 96 per cent of the current spend on cases involving child claimants will continue. Because we have adopted the approach that I have outlined, we do not accept Amendment 171, which seeks to bring all cases back into the scope of legal aid where a child is a party. On current plans, the overwhelming majority of current support will continue, as I said. The noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, has tabled Amendment 171B, which is almost identical to Amendment 171, with the exception of immigration and consumer law cases, on which the House of Commons has offered a clear view. In our opinion, Amendment 171B will elicit the same response in the House of Commons. However, I will set out again the measures that are in place that will guard against the risk of children falling through the net. As noble Lords know, we have committed to providing additional resources for citizens advice bureaux and similar groups that provide the general practical advice that can often prove more productive than drawn-out adversarial legal action. As I mentioned earlier today, we will be making a further £20 million available to the sector in each of the next two financial years. It is therefore not the case that there will be no or substantially reduced funding for cases involving children and young people. Some in past debates have suggested that children might be left to fend for themselves in courts of law. Let me address that very clearly. It is already a requirement of the rules of civil litigation that a child must have a litigation friend to conduct a case on their behalf, usually a parent unless the court specifically orders otherwise. It will be only in exceptional circumstances that the court will make an order permitting the child to conduct proceedings on their own behalf. Any step taken before a child has a litigation friend is of no effect unless the court makes such an order. There is no requirement that a litigation friend must act through a solicitor. It is therefore open to a child's parent, or other person caring for the child, for example, to act as the child's litigation friend in proceedings where the child is a party. In other scenarios—for example, tribunals that are addressed in the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness—where a child may be bringing an action without a litigation friend, this will of course be a relevant factor in deciding whether they have the ability to present their own case and whether exceptional funding for representation is required in order to avoid a breach of Article 6 of the ECHR. This means that the existing Civil Procedure Rules, combined with our exceptional funding system, will provide crucial safeguards against children being left to navigate court and tribunal hearings on their own. We believe that these measures, taken together, are sufficient to guard against the risk of children falling through the net where they do not fall into the vast majority of cases that are still covered by legal aid. I beg to move. Motion J1 (as an amendment to Motion J) Moved by