House of Lords

Tuesday 24th January 2012 Lords Chamber

Tuesday, 24 January 2012.

14:30

Prayers—read by the Lord Bishop of Manchester.

House of Lords: Reform

Tuesday 24th January 2012 Lords Chamber

Question

14:36

Asked By

[Lord Grocott]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their latest estimate of the cost of running a reformed House of Lords in the first transitional year of its operation.

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)]

My Lords, the costs of a reformed House will depend on a number of variables. In particular, both the net cost and total cost of salaries and allowances will depend on the transitional arrangements and the number of Members. We intend to consider the views of the Joint Committee before finalising our proposals for the reform of this House.

[Lord Grocott]

With respect to the Leader, that is not the most satisfying response I have had to a Question. I find it particularly odd that we have no figures when Governments of all persuasions manage to tell us how much an aircraft carrier will cost but cannot workout what 300 senators will cost. It is particularly unsatisfactory because the Deputy Prime Minister has already announced to the country that his flagship Bill in the next Session, announced ahead of the Queen’s Speech, will be a Lords reform Bill. He has apparently done this without having the faintest idea of what his project will cost. I hope that I might therefore ask the Leader, on behalf of the House, to speak to the Deputy Prime Minister and ask him please to give us the detailed costings with all those variables, which he must have. If he does not give us an answer, the suspicion will be that he knows it will cost a lot more than the present House and he is simply too embarrassed to tell us.

[Lord Strathclyde]

I am sorry if I disappointed the noble Lord, Lord Grocott. It may have been in his estimation an unsatisfactory reply, but that does not stop it being true. The fact is that the Government have not made a final decision on the arrangements for the House, particularly on the transitional arrangements or the size of the House. There is a process of pre-legislative scrutiny continuing under the excellent chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Richard, and until that process is over we will not be able to come up with these figures. However, as is perfectly normal, if a Bill is published after the Queen’s Speech in the next Session of Parliament, it will include a financial memorandum with a detailed breakdown of the costs of a new House.

[Lord Cormack]

But does my noble friend still hold to the view that an elected House would be more expensive than the present House? That being the case, and bearing in mind the current financial straits that the country is in, is it really a good use of public money to have a highly expensive elected House when, at the moment, we have a highly effective House that is capable of being reformed without being elected?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, there is no doubt that this is an effective House and a very good value House and therefore I hold to a view that I have made public in the past: that a reformed House, directly elected and with fully salaried Members, would cost more than the current House. However, it would have a legitimacy, and a power and authority, which this House does not have. I remind the House, as I have done many times, that at the last general election all three main parties carried a commitment in their manifestos to reform this House.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

My Lords—

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

Should not addiction to constitutional reform be treated with the same bracing cure as addiction to welfare benefits? Will the Government set a cap on the amount that ordinary, decent, hard-working British citizens are to be required to pay to support the constitutional reform dependency of the Liberal Democrats?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, the noble Lord speaks as though his own party did not stand on a manifesto of reform of your Lordships’ House, which it did.

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, will my noble friend take due account of the very exaggerated estimates of the potential cost, which do not take into account the fact that the allowances of current Members of the House are untaxed while, presumably, a salaried Member of the new House would be taxed? Has my noble friend taken note of the fact that Mr Mark Harper, the Minister responsible for the Bill, has indicated to the Joint Committee in open session that at present a Member of this House based in London can take home more than an MP?

[Lord Strathclyde]

I agree with my noble friend on the question of taxation, and indeed with my honourable friend Mark Harper, the Minister in the House of Commons. However, I am not sure that that is a very useful comparison. After all, it would require a Peer living in London to turn up every single day, and one of the strengths of this House is that it is part-time and people choose to come when they feel that they have something of value to contribute.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, how do the Government’s proposals for reform fit in with rumours in the House of Commons that the Government are about to pack the House of Lords with an additional 50—perhaps even more than 50—coalition Peers? Where are they going to sit, where are they going to park and where are they going to have their offices?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I am sure that issues such as where new Peers may or may not park are at the top of the agenda in the highest echelons of the Government. I too have heard this rumour but I have no idea where it came from. I thought initially that it was something to do with the Cross Benches as there was a letter in one of the newspapers from a leading Cross-Bench Member. There is no plan to pack the House with at least 60 government supporters. It would look absurd and it would be absurd.

[Baroness Knight of Collingtree]

My Lords, if it becomes possible for that figure to come out—we all appreciate the difficulties that have been enunciated—can we be sure that, at the same time as it is published, figures for the expense of running the House of Commons and of running the current House of Lords are side by side with it?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I understand the point that my noble friend is making. The comparative figures between this House and the House of Commons are already in the public domain and are well understood. As I said, this House provides very good value for money.

[Lord Kakkar]

My Lords, the noble Lord the Leader has placed great emphasis on the report of the Joint Committee scrutinising the draft Bill. What arrangements will be made for that report to be carefully scrutinised by your Lordships’ House in good time?

[Lord Strathclyde]

How to scrutinise the scrutineers, my Lords. I have not yet given great thought to how this House will do that, but there will be discussions in the usual channels. It is likely that in the new Session of Parliament we will find an opportunity at least to debate the Joint Committee’s report, and we will make an announcement in due course.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, the noble Lord the Leader mentioned variables in relation to cost and I quite understand the variables. As the Joint Committee itself is looking at variables, may I ask the noble Lord whether the Joint Committee is looking at the variable costs?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I am not responsible for the Joint Committee and nor are the Government. There are 26 members of the Joint Committee, including Members of the Cross Benches and a Bishop, so I am sure that if they wish to study the variables, in whichever shape or form they wish to, they will be able to do so and they will be able to attach figures to them.

Falkland Islands

Tuesday 24th January 2012 Lords Chamber

Question

14:45

Asked By

[Viscount Montgomery of Alamein]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they propose to take with regard to the refusal of entry to Falkland Island flagged vessels by Brazil and Uruguay.

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Howell of Guildford)]

My Lords, the Statement to Parliament of my right honourable friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary on 10 January outlined our response. We have issued our strongest objections to the decision by the Mercosur countries to deny access to Falkland Island flagged vessels. While we do not accept that the decision has any basis in international law, our priority has been to ensure that the trade and commercial links between the Falklands and South America are not compromised by this political declaration. We have achieved this.

[Viscount Montgomery of Alamein]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that interesting reply. Does he agree that it would be desirable to restart direct discussions—not negotiations, since there is nothing to negotiate—with Argentina, since it is at Argentina’s behest that this action has been taken?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

If I might alter slightly what the noble Viscount has said, no action has been taken. Brazil, Chile and Uruguay have all agreed to continue welcoming shipping if it is flying the British Red Ensign flag, which these ships fly. If there is an intention of action, that action has not led to any results at all. As for talking to Argentina, we have said all along that we are anxious to have sensible and creative discussions that could be of assistance to Argentina itself in the longer term, so long as we respect the wishes of the Falkland Islanders, which must be paramount in accordance with international law.

[Baroness Hooper]

My Lords, what steps are being taken by our splendid ambassadors in the region to counteract the tactics of the president of Argentina’s Government in persuading Argentina’s neighbours to support its claims of sovereignty in this way? In other words, what advice is the Foreign Office giving to ambassadors on the ground to prevent other countries following suit?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I think we have been a little ahead of the game. Obviously, the intention of Argentina was, sadly, to obstruct the movement of Falkland Islands shipping. Before that could happen we secured, for a start, the full assurance of Brazil, Chile and Uruguay that they would continue to welcome shipping flying the British ensign flag and would not interfere with trade. We have every reason to believe that the same attitude will prevail in all other ports where Falkland Islands shipping may call. However, we have taken action. Our ambassadors have moved very quickly and we are, as I say, ahead of the game.

[Lord Liddle]

My Lords, following the question of the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, would the Minister agree that the best form of soft security for the Falkland Islands is very good, strong British relations with the South American neighbours of Argentina? Can he give us an update on what has happened to British relations with those countries and why this matter has come forward as it has in relation to Falkland Island flagged vessels? In particular, what has happened, since the present Government took office and since President Rousseff took office as the new president of Brazil, to the excellent relations that the British Government had with Brazil under the Labour Government and President Lula da Silva?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

As far as relations with Latin America generally are concerned, I can safely say that where excellent relations existed before they have been built on and are even more excellent now. Considerable effort has been made in renewing and expanding our relations with Latin America. My right honourable friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary was in Brazil the other day on a highly successful visit. My honourable friend Mr Jeremy Browne, the Minister of State, constantly visits Latin American countries, and visitors have come here with whom I and others have liaised very closely. We feel that we have a very good developing relationship, which includes the expansion of our embassy facilities and capabilities in the region.

There are many theories as to why agitation and tension have arisen over this matter. Many experts point to the possible discovery of commercial deposits of oil around the Falklands. It is a great pity that Argentina bowed out of the hydrocarbons declaration, which would have enabled it to benefit from these developments on the oil front. However, it decided to stand aside from this and, instead, to complain and apparently grow angry at what is happening. That may be one reason.

[Lord Wright of Richmond]

My Lords, can the noble Lord tell the House what discussions we have had with our European Union colleagues, particularly our Spanish and Portuguese allies, to enlist their support with their Latin American friends to oppose this ban?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

We keep in constant touch with all our EU colleagues on this matter and have had considerable understanding and support. Inevitably, there are different perspectives but the general acceptance is that in international law the Falkland Islands people have the right to have their wishes respected and that any development in the future must be guided by those wishes. If they wish that to change, it will change; if they do not wish it to change, it will not change.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

Will my noble friend tell the House whether the reports are accurate that almost all the ships that are now banned from visiting Mercosur ports while flying the Falklands ensign are owned by Spanish shipping companies? In light of that, are we having discussions with the Spanish about the commercial damage which is clearly being done to them through this ban? Are we having discussions with Chile, as President Kirchner has asked the Chilean Government to ban commercial flights to the Falkland Islands?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

We have had discussions with Chile of a thoroughly positive nature. It is one of the countries that has agreed to accept ships flying the British Red Ensign. I cannot comment on the ownership of some of these ships. I have seen rumours in the media but I have no further information on that matter.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, while jaw-jaw is better than war-war, as Churchill said—the great man died 47 years ago today—there is no doubt that the world is extremely dangerous. We have seen the events of the Arab spring and in Libya and tensions in the Falklands. Will the Government look at their reduction in defence spending bearing in mind these very serious risks?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

The question of our capability and abilities to meet the world’s tensions are under constant review. Some of these involve military and others soft power deployments. However, the noble Lord is absolutely right that dangers are springing up. Later this afternoon this House will have to deal with another one that he did not mention—that is, the situation in the Strait of Hormuz.

Child Poverty

Tuesday 24th January 2012 Lords Chamber

Question

14:53

Asked By

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what are their current targets for reducing child poverty.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud)]

My Lords, the Government are committed to eradicating child poverty but recognise that income measures and targets do not tell the full story about the causes and consequences of childhood disadvantage. We will measure the success of our approach to tackling child poverty through a new set of indicators including, but not limited to, the income targets set out in the Child Poverty Act. They include measures of family circumstances and drivers of children’s life chances.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

I thank the Minister for that response. Does he accept that children are in poverty through no fault of their own and that, in neglecting early years, social costs may be very significant later? Will he also say whether proposed legislation such as the Welfare Reform Bill and the legal aid Bill will have a negative or positive impact on child poverty?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, we certainly agree on the importance of early intervention. We have put in a number of measures to reinforce that, including: the fairness premium, on which £7.2 billion is being spent; the expansion of free early education for three and four year-olds and for 40 per cent of two year-olds; and the introduction of the pupil premium. As for the Bills mentioned, in the long run the universal credit is predicted to take 350,000 children out of poverty, but rather more important than that is reducing the number of workless households by 300,000. That is a behavioural response. On legal aid, we have retained legal aid for child parties in virtually all family cases.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

The Minister has said that the best way to get children out of poverty is to ensure that their families are in employment. How do the Government intend to bring the number of jobs available into line with the unemployment figures in the short term rather than the long term, because it is short-term measures that will have an effect on children? In addition to the issues he has outlined, what other financial help will he give to families in the short term while jobs are becoming available?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, we have a large number of measures to deal with unemployment in the short, medium and long terms, but the really important area here is to look at the long-term unemployed who have been excluded from economic activity. That is one of the most important areas of effort that we are undertaking to try and get those families back into the economic activity of the country.

[Lord German]

My Lords, the work programme is one of the cornerstones of the Government’s action to alleviate child poverty. Today’s NAO report on the work programme reports that harder-to-help people are not being referred to the programme in the numbers expected. Surely, as the Minister has said, this is the most important group to help to get back into work. What response does my noble friend have to the NAO report in that respect?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, we are concerned about the slow way that people on ESA are moving into the work programme and we are looking closely at how to accelerate that process. Clearly, one of the ambitions of the programme is to get the hardest-to-help people back into the workforce, and there has been a rather slow start in that area.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, can the Minister explain why the Government dismissed the projected 100,000 increase in child poverty due to tax credit cuts as a “statistical quirk” arising from the relative nature of that poverty when, in opposition, the Prime Minister promised,

“loud and clear … the Conservative Party recognises, will measure and will act on relative poverty”?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, one of the recent decisions we have taken was to up-rate benefits by the CPI at 5.2 per cent, when average earnings in the period have increased by 2.8 per cent. Interestingly, that is the core reason why the IFS projections for this year and next show a decline on last year. Looking further ahead, we clearly have a lot of work to do in maintaining any reduction in child poverty and the IFS warns us that we need to have government policies to do that. However, I should point out that what we are driving towards is behavioural change, whereas the IFS measures concrete changes of income transfer.

[The Lord Bishop of Wakefield]

My Lords, further to the previous question, the Institute for Fiscal Studies report suggests that within three years, by 2015, the number of children in poverty will have increased by 400,000. What will the Government’s response be?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, I was trying to answer that question just now. The IFS projections are valuable and important, but they do not absorb changes in future policy and they do not make any assumptions as to behavioural change; many of the policies that we are driving are trying to get people back into work and reduce worklessness in that way. In particular, as regards universal credit, the report does not take into account the reduction in workless families that we are expecting.

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

My Lords, if the reforms going through the House at the moment are carried, many families lose their homes and children are put into care, the cost will be £2,900 a week for each child who is in care. Have the Government taken that into consideration?

[Lord Freud]

As noble Lords will know, we are not expecting that kind of change as a result of our policies. We have in that sense taken that into account.

Coins

Tuesday 24th January 2012 Lords Chamber

Question

15:00

Asked by

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what estimate they have made of the costs to local government and business of preparing for the new coinage, in the light of reports that the new size cannot be used in existing parking meters and vending machines.

[The Commercial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Sassoon)]

My Lords, the Treasury published a full impact assessment on this measure last February, which is available on the Treasury website. The impact assessment was compiled after consultation with representative industry groups and estimates the overall net benefit of the conversion of 5p and 10p coins to nickel-plated steel to be about £40 million. The Royal Mint has been working with the industry for more than two years in anticipation of this change.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

My Lords, I think the gap in the Minister’s Answer is that, although the Government will save money, there will be a cost to the industry in changing vending machines, payphones, parking meters, et cetera, because the new coins are marginally thicker. The cost to the vending industry will be about £25 million. The fear now is that if the £1 coin was changed, it would cost the vending industry more than £100 million to adapt. I seek assurances from the Minister that if any change is considered, there will be full consultation with industry, a two-year period in which the industry can make the changes needed and consideration of compensatory payments, given the very high cost involved to the industry.

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, first, on the implementation of the introduction of the new 5p and 10p pieces, the Government took the view, after consulting the industry, that there should be a delay of one year from the date of January 2011, when the previous Government had originally intended to introduce the coins. The noble Baroness refers to the Automatic Vending Association. When we announced the delay in the introduction, the association’s CEO said:

“This … is fantastic news for the vending and coin machine industries because it allows them more time to update coin mechanisms, providing a saving of £16.8 million to the vending industry—a real help in the current economic climate”.

So the introduction of the new coins has been done in full consultation.

When it comes to the £1 coin, the issue is rather different. It is one not of cost saving but of potential risk and a drop in confidence as a result of counterfeiting. The counterfeiting of £1 coins is estimated to account for almost 3 per cent of the stock, but the Royal Mint conducts regular public awareness surveys to ensure that public confidence in the pound is high, and the Government have no change to the £1 coin in mind.

[Lord Naseby]

My Lords, the consultation with business and industry and the saving are welcome, but after the new coins have been in circulation for a period, will it be obvious to the consumer which coins they have in their pocket when they arrive at a parking meter?

[Lord Sassoon]

Noble Lords may not be aware that they may have in their pocket two different sorts of 1p and 2p coins, because they were changed from cupronickel to copper-plated steel in 1992. When looking in my pocket this morning, first, I could not distinguish them and, secondly, I had not been aware of the distinction. This is well trodden territory as successive Governments have updated the coinage, and there should be no particular difficulty.

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, the House will have derived some reassurance from the Minister's answers thus far, but given that in the not too distant future there are likely to be changes to the higher denomination coins, would it not be politic now to have a full-blown consultation on, or perhaps even a commission into, the coinage to look at the future, to give people the opportunity to make their views known and to prepare?

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, prepare for what? I have already said that there are no plans to change the £1 coin and I am happy to say that there are no plans to change any of the other denominations of coins. It is all rather hypothetical.

[Lord Sewel]

My Lords, I shall ask a Grocott-type question, if I may. Has the Treasury done any calculations or estimates of the cost of changing the coinage in the event of Scottish independence? Is this not another example of the folly of the independence line?

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, I am not aware that any such study has been done.

[Lord Winston]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that the change to copper-plated steel is very difficult when I am doing electrical experiments with my three and a half year-old grandchild?

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, I am not sure what we can do about that, but I can assure the noble Lord that, based on the experience with the 1p and 2p coins, there will be many cupronickel 5p and 10p coins still in existence for many years to come.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester]

My Lords, I congratulate the Government on issuing a new set of coins to popularise the Olympic Games and the fact that a number of coins represent particular sports. Can I regret the fact that the new 50p coin, which defines the football off-side law, is incorrect?

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, I think that we are straying a bit from the Question. I must say that my knowledge of the twists and turns of the off-side law has never been completely up to date.

European Union (Definition of Treaties) (Republic of Korea Free Trade Agreement) Order 2012

Tuesday 24th January 2012 Lords Chamber

Local Better Regulation Office (Dissolution and Transfer of Functions, Etc.) Order 2012

Motions to Approve

15:06

Moved by

[Lord De Mauley]

That the draft orders laid before the House on 2 November and 6 December 2011 be approved.

Relevant documents: 33rd and 36th Reports from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, considered in Grand Committee on 16 January.

Motions agreed.

Scotland Bill

Tuesday 24th January 2012 Lords Chamber

Order of Consideration Motion

15:07

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

That it be an instruction to the Committee of the Whole House to which the Scotland Bill has been committed that they consider the Bill in the following order:

Clauses 1 to 9, Clauses 11 to 44, Clause 10, Schedules 1 to 5.

[The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Wallace of Tankerness)]

My Lords, the usual channels have agreed that it would be desirable for the Committee-stage debate on the question of a referendum on independence to take place after the Government’s consultation has closed on 9 March. This Motion enables our debates on Clause 10 of the Bill to be taken last, and I suggest that any amendments relating to a referendum are best placed “before Clause 10”. I respectfully encourage noble Lords to table referendum-related amendments as “before Clause 10” rather than to other parts of the Bill. If the House agrees to this Motion, I understand that the Chief Whip will ensure that the last day in Committee is scheduled for the week of 12 March.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords, the Minister will recall that on 10 January I raised this with him when he made the statement and asked that the whole Committee stage be held over until after the consultation. My intention was to ensure that there should be no discussion on the referendum and all aspects of it while the consultation was under way. I therefore thank the Minister very much indeed for finding a solution that enables that to be put into effect.

[Lord Neill of Bladen]

I refer to the letter from the Scottish judges asking for additional clauses to be put into the Scotland Bill. Where does that fit into the Minister’s programme? How do we handle that?

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, first, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, for welcoming this. We recognised the issue and found a way to resolve it. On the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Neill, I certainly recognise the importance of the letter sent by the Lord President of the Court of Session. It is likely, although one can never be sure, that the clause to which that relates in Part 2 of the Bill will be debated on Thursday 2 February. I hope that copies of the letter will be available in the Printed Paper Office for our consideration. There are both government amendments and amendments in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord McCluskey, which I am sure will allow us to have a very full and informed debate on that issue.

Motion agreed.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Tuesday 24th January 2012 Lords Chamber

Committee (5th Day)

15:10

Relevant documents: 21st Report from the Constitution Committee, 22nd Report from the Joint Committee on Human Rights, 21st and 22nd Reports from the Delegated Powers Committee.

Schedule 1 : Civil legal services

Amendment 73

Moved by

[Lord Avebury]

73: Schedule 1, page 131, line 44, leave out “subject to sub-paragraph (10)”

[Lord Avebury]

My Lords, the small print in the paragraphs of Schedule 1, dealt with in this group of amendments, would have a catastrophic effect on the provision of advice and representation—

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

Perhaps I may encourage noble Lords to leave the Chamber peacefully so that we can hear my noble friend Lord Avebury.

[Lord Avebury]

I am most grateful to my noble friend. I was saying that it would have a catastrophic effect on the provision of advice and representation to Gypsies and Travellers on issues relating to their accommodation. I am sure that I do not need to remind your Lordships that in the most recent survey by the DCLG in England, almost one in five of the caravan-dwelling population of Travellers was homeless, and that in terms of health, education, life expectancy, employment and access to public services they are the most deprived ethnic minority in our country. The tragic events at Dale Farm in Hertfordshire brought the plight of residents there to the attention of the whole country as their eviction was played out on TV day after day, at an estimated cost to the taxpayer, and to the council tax payers of Basildon, of £18 million.

Ministers say that Travellers must obey planning laws like everyone else; but they demolished the system created by the previous Government under which an obligation was imposed on local authorities to provide planning permission for Travellers’ sites that would accommodate the number of Travellers in each area, as determined by an independent assessment of needs, buttressed by public inquiries. Since the Secretary of State gave local authorities carte blanche to rip up those plans and decide in their unaided wisdom whether to allocate any land at all in their development plans to Travellers’ sites, the number of sites for which it was intended that planning permission should be granted has plummeted by half, according to research conducted by the Irish Traveller Movement in Britain.

At the same time, because of the unsympathetic attitude to Travellers who want to provide their own accommodation caused by the scrapping of circular 1/2006, Travellers who want to provide their own accommodation now have greater difficulty than ever identifying plots of land on which they would have the remotest chance of getting planning permission. They invariably find that there is an immediate hullabaloo from settled residents in the neighbourhood, whatever the planning merits of the site, because Gypsies and Travellers are the only communities against whom open racist prejudice can still be voiced without challenge.

This is the context in which Travellers are to be deprived of legal aid in cases that involve eviction from unauthorised sites and from rented sites; other issues concerning rented sites; High Court and county court planning cases such as injunctions, planning appeals or stop notices; and, finally, homelessness cases. In paragraph 28 of Schedule 1, loss of home is kept within the scope of legal aid, and “home” includes a caravan that is the individual's only or main residence. However, the words left out by the first four amendments in this group, and by Amendment 87, would address the exclusion of a caravan that is occupied by a trespasser. This would mean, for example, that a Traveller who trespasses on a local authority site, having been moved on from the roadside to a vacant pitch, would be unable to contest an order for possession and would thus be at immediate risk of losing their home. In such a case recently, solicitors managed to fend off an order and the case is going to trial.

A great deal of media attention has been given recently to local authority housing that has been left unoccupied for months, or even years in some cases. If the same is happening on local authority Traveller sites, where the shortage is even more desperate, it is surely desirable that the courts should be able to look into the matter. There is a difference between caravan dwellers and housing trespassers because there are houses in which a homeless person can be accommodated, but there are no sites on which a person dispossessed from a caravan site can find alternative accommodation. There are just no alternative sites available.

15:11

At the July 2011 count of Traveller sites, there were 4,000 caravans on unauthorised sites in England, of which just over 2,000 were on land not owned by the occupiers and therefore vulnerable to possession orders. When these provisions come into force, almost certainly there will be some landowners who seize the opportunity of kicking the Travellers off, in many cases without even having to turn up in court, and if they do, coming up against an unaided defendant. Since there is nowhere that they can lawfully take their caravans, the evicted Travellers will end up on a different unauthorised site to await yet another eviction. This churning of people living on unauthorised sites will have further harmful repercussions for the lives of the families concerned and, primarily, for the health and education of their children. That will be the effect of removing access to legal aid from people forced to live on unauthorised sites because of the failure of successive Governments over the 50 years of my political lifetime to ensure that Gypsy and Traveller caravan dwellers have places to live. Do your Lordships want to deprive these communities of the right to defend themselves against the threat of repeated eviction? I certainly hope not.

Turning to Amendment 77, it is ironic that after the success of the campaign over many years to extend the Mobile Homes Act 1983 to local authority sites, the Government have proposed that all the provisions of that Act, other than the ones concerning possession actions, should be taken out of scope. The Community Law Partnership, to which I pay tribute for the excellent work that it does on behalf of Travellers and for its help in drafting and briefing on these amendments, has lodged an application for judicial review on behalf of a Traveller challenging the failure of the equality impact assessment to address the impact of this proposal on Gypsies and Travellers. For many of them who live on rented sites, there will be no legal advice on breaches of covenant, quiet enjoyment, succession, re-siting of the mobile home, rent increases or repairs. Few of them will have the ability to deal with such cases on their own because of the widespread educational disadvantage that affects these communities and the consequent low levels of literacy and numeracy that they suffer. All we are asking for is for initial advice, since cases other than possession under the Mobile Homes Act in England are dealt with in a residential property tribunal, where legal aid is not normally available anyway.

Finally, Amendment 79 restores the right to legal aid in the large number of planning cases that appear not to be covered by paragraph 28(1)(b) because of the use of the term “eviction”. This could make it difficult, if not impossible, to maintain that for the purpose of claiming legal aid, the loss of home resulting from the dismissal of a challenge under Sections 288 or 289 of the Town and Country Planning Act or the granting of an injunction under Section 187B of that Act may be considered equivalent to an eviction because in any of those cases the occupier forfeits his home in the end, even if there is a delay before he actually has to leave the site. The Community Law Partnership asked the Ministry of Justice for clarification of this point, and in its reply the department stated that,

“legal aid will … remain available to defend an application for an injunction to evict a person from a site under Section 187B of the Town and Country Planning Act or for a planning appeal that might result in the individual being legally required to leave their home”.

That appears to cover the whole of Amendment 79, but it needs to be spelled out in the Bill.

Annexe B of the Government’s response to the consultation on reform of legal aid contains a list of the key issues raised. One of these was that:

“Funding should be provided for planning appeals and eviction cases involving Gypsies and Travellers because this group was one of the most vulnerable in society”.

Immediately following these key issues, in paragraphs 75 to 82, the Government deal with the other issues raised but totally ignore the needs of the Travellers—the usual experience of these communities and the agencies that try to help them. In this case, however, it is not only the Travellers themselves who will suffer if these amendments are not accepted; the greater levels of harassment and evictions of Travellers on unauthorised sites that will inevitably follow the withdrawal of legal aid in planning cases, coupled with the abandonment of a strategy for securing that an adequate number of planning permissions are awarded to meet the needs identified by the Government themselves in their twice-yearly count, means that there will be more unauthorised sites than ever, with the attendant health, education and social problems.

Making life more difficult for Gypsies and Travellers is not the way to turn them into good citizens who generate fewer burdens on public services. I beg to move.

[Baroness Whitaker]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, has set out very clearly and powerfully the way this group of amendments would work. I will briefly give noble Lords a couple of examples to flesh out what they mean in real cases.

For instance, there are two Gypsies on different plots, both facing injunctions to make them leave their own land because they have not yet obtained planning permission—notoriously low down on most local authorities’ to-do lists. With legal aid, lawyers managed to hold off the injunctions on the basis that there were reasonable prospects of success in their planning appeals. One of them has now obtained permanent planning permission and the other has obtained temporary permission for three years—of importance when there are school-age children in the family. The point is that these two would have been homeless without legally aided assistance, but these cases would not qualify for legal aid.

I should just add that the other Minister’s amendments to the previous group of housing clauses, offered in the witching hour last Wednesday, are welcome, but they are not nearly bewitching enough. They do not materially alter the unfair situation that Gypsies and Travellers will find themselves in if the Bill becomes law.

I also cite the case of a family on a private caravan site, protected by the Mobile Homes Act 1983—unless this Bill becomes law—but facing harassment by their landlord. The harassment was clearly intended to force them to leave the site. Their legal aid lawyer obtained an injunction to stop the harassment. One of the victims said, “Without a solicitor acting for us, they would have got us out by now”—again, they would have been homeless. As the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, said, Gypsies and Travellers are often illiterate and harassment can be very complex in legal terms.

Gypsies and Travellers are often illiterate because that is what happens when you are moved on all the time as a child. Is it any wonder that our Gypsy and Traveller children have the lowest attainment rates in school, are more likely to die in infancy and have mothers who are more likely to die in childbirth? These are the consequences of constant eviction and moving on. The reason for even more moving on will still be the lack of legal sites, but added to an overwhelmingly unmet need—if the Bill becomes law—for legal advice and assistance in establishing such entitlement as exists.

Of course, the costs of unnecessary evictions are huge, but the most important disbenefit, if some form of these amendments is not accepted, will be to the ordinary human rights accepted for all other citizens not to be made homeless. As it stands, this Bill discriminates against a defined minority-ethnic group—whatever previous government letters to me have said—and I hope the noble and learned Lord can provide a more positive attitude.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I, too, support Amendment 79, to which my name is added, and I declare my interest as a landowner. I am most grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, and my noble friend Lord Avebury, for drawing my attention to these amendments. All children need a degree of stability in their lives if they are to do well. Instability for Traveller children arising from repeated displacements—the “churning” to which my noble friend referred—impacts particularly adversely on their educational outcomes. Displacement risks undermining the education of Traveller children, excluding them from society and contributing to a cycle of generational failure. I would encourage the Minister to accept this amendment as a means of improving educational outcomes for Traveller children and of promoting their inclusion in society.

I should like to pray in aid two documents; namely, My Dream Site, which includes research with Traveller children and is published by the Children’s Society, and a 2003 Ofsted report, Provision and Support for Traveller Pupils. The Ofsted report states:

“The average attendance rate for Traveller pupils is around 75%. This figure is well below the national average and is the worst attendance profile of any minority ethnic group … The 1996 Ofsted report The education of Travelling children estimated that at least 10,000 Traveller pupils of secondary age were not registered at school. This survey”—

the 2003 survey—

“indicates no decrease in these numbers and estimates that the figure could now be closer to 12,000. Despite examples of success by some services, the picture at the secondary phase remains a matter of very serious concern. Not enough Traveller pupils attend or stay on at secondary school … The vast majority of Traveller pupils linger on the periphery of the education system. The situation has persisted for too long and the alarm bells rung in earlier reports have yet to be heeded”.

That 2003 report highlights our failure to educate secondary-school-age Traveller children in particular.

The Children’s Society report indicates the connection between stability and school success for Traveller children. It states:

“More than any other amenity school raised a range of emotions.

‘It’s good for your education but it’s hard to get in because you’re travellers and that, so you get a lot of hassle at school.’ Johnny aged 12 years.

Other children’s experiences at school were similar, as they had also experienced bullying because of their traveller status.

‘The only reason a lot of people do it is because they don’t understand. I tell the teachers but they don’t do anything.’ Daisy aged 12 years.

There was a marked difference in attitude towards school from the children who had been settled on a site for a stable period of time. These children had an opportunity to settle into a school routine and knew what was expected from them in a school setting. The opportunity to build up a relationship with staff and with other children seemed to make attending school a far easier experience. They appeared to have less of a problem with being bullied because of living a nomadic lifestyle. Some of the children no longer identified themselves as travellers but saw themselves more as settlers. These children had been able to attend one school and had lived in one place for most of their lives”.

To conclude, all children need a degree of stability. The education of Traveller children is likely to be significantly impaired by continued upheavals, which can lead to their exclusion from society and failure for successive generations of Traveller children. I support this amendment because it may contribute to improved stability for Traveller children and I look forward to the Minister’s response.

15:29

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, the treatment of Gypsies and Travellers by states and other public agencies in the West over the last 100 years and longer has been in large measure a major disgrace. The worst instances have certainly not occurred in this country, but, as the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, put it to us, there remains a remarkable degree of prejudice against Gypsies and Travellers still, unfortunately, extensively licensed by public opinion. I was struck, in the two constituencies I had the privilege to represent in the House of Commons, by how very difficult it was, in the face of public opinion, for local planning authorities to construct a policy framework in their areas which would ensure that Gypsies and Travellers had places where they were entitled to live. While I would not argue for especially favourable treatment for Gypsies and Travellers any more than I would for any other group, it is particularly incumbent on us, as we scrutinise all legislation, to be sure that it does not involve anything that may be discriminatory against them. So I simply ask the Minister and his colleagues to look carefully and sympathetically at the amendments in this group, which have been moved and spoken to so well by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, my noble friend Lady Whitaker and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

My Lords, I, too, want to add my voice briefly in support of the amendments moved by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury. Perhaps it would have been surprising if anyone other than the noble Lord had moved these amendments. I was at school when the noble Lord, as Eric Lubbock, Member for Orpington in the House of Commons, moved his Gypsies and caravan sites legislation in, I think, 1967. Many of us admired the courageous way in which he has continued over the following years to raise the plight of Travellers and Gypsies in the discrimination and racism that other noble Lords have referred to in the debate.

As a young city councillor in the 1970s, I served in Liverpool on the committee which was charged with the duty of creating a caravan sites Act. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, who is in his place, will recall the controversy that that aroused at the time. But we fulfilled our statutory duties and took on the prejudice that inevitably was raised. The not-in-my-back-yard syndrome is one with which we are all familiar. Indeed, it has to be said that the presence of Travellers or Gypsies in a community can raise a number of issues, not the least of which are questions of educational provision. In the 1970s, that provision was made, and I agree with what my noble friend Lord Listowel said about the importance of providing stability of education for the children of Travellers as they progress through life.

A few months ago we saw what happens when there is an unregulated approach to these matters. At Dale Farm there was a terrible culmination in violence that involved the use of Tasers. We saw the police having to be pitted against members of the Traveller community as they were evicted from their homes. That is not a sight that most of us want to see repeated on a regular basis. But I fear that unless amendments of this sort are incorporated, and if we deny people access to justice, which was the point made by the noble Lord in his speech, all these other things will follow. They will be the corollary. If we do not provide opportunities for resolution on planning disputes and access to amenities, as well as on questions of discrimination and the others that have been raised during this brief debate, we will see more incidents like Dale Farm. For that reason, I hope that when the noble and learned Lord comes to reply, he will tell us just how many unauthorised sites there are in the country, what is the estimated shortfall of places—that will give us a barometer of how many disputes will have to be resolved in the years to come—and the cost to the public purse through legal aid of cases which have been brought before the courts over the past decade? Without knowing what the sums of money involved are, surely it would be irresponsible of us to dismiss lightly the amendments to maintain the status quo which the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, has put before us today.

I end by returning to his point about the importance of ensuring that people have access to justice. That runs all the way through the proceedings of this Bill in your Lordships’ House, and it will continue to be the question. You cannot get justice on the cheap, and groups like these should not be left on the margins, unable to access the courts.

[Baroness Turner of Camden]

My Lords, I support the case that has been made so well by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, and my noble friend Lady Whitaker. It is well known that the Gypsy and Traveller communities are among the most vulnerable and disadvantaged communities in England and Wales in terms of health, education and discrimination. It is almost universally accepted that these disadvantages and problems would be addressed if there was adequate site provision. Of course, that does not really happen, because it looks to me as though local authorities fail to follow government guidance on encampments, to take into account human rights considerations and to follow a proper and reasonable process in relation to sites for Travellers. If Gypsies and Travellers get involved in county court and High Court planning cases without the assistance of legal aid, they will eventually end up homeless. That is surely to be avoided and a distinct worsening of the situation. It is something that we should not be prepared to countenance. I therefore hope that the Government will give due consideration to the excellent case which has been made by my noble friends with a view to accepting it. These people deserve our support and consideration.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, I find myself in total agreement with everything that has been said so far by all noble Lords who have spoken to this amendment. The arguments have been put fully, lucidly and with great force, and certainly do not need me to underline them. However, I would say two things. Many years ago, I felt that there was an equitable balance between the interests of Travellers and those of the community at large, a balance which had been brought about by the legislation for which the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, fought so valiantly over the years. It was necessary under that legislation for local authorities to provide certain basic facilities for Travellers. That balance was maintained by a flagship judgment by the late Mr Justice Peter Pain, a most humane and pioneering judge, who said to a county council in Wales: “You are seeking injunction to remove these Travellers from a lay-by whose freehold is vested in your good selves. On the other hand, you have, I think in a cavalier way, done nothing at all to implement the obligations which were placed upon you to provide for Travellers. An injunction is an equitable remedy. I exercise my judicial discretion not to grant it until I am convinced that you, too, will carry out your statutory obligation”. Unfortunately, the law has now been changed and that balance no longer remains, which makes this group of amendments all the more relevant.

The other thing that I would say, as one who exercised a family jurisdiction for some years, is how obvious it was to me that insecurity ate like acid into the lives of children of Traveller families, particularly in the context of education.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, I support the amendments. I was a member of the National Equality Panel, and one of the most shocking of our findings was the degree of educational disadvantage among Gypsy and Traveller communities. Reading the very helpful briefing that we have had from Community Law Partnership reminded me of the importance of this. A number of noble Lords have made the point about educational disadvantage and children’s need for education and security. Of course, access to justice is that much more important for a community which suffers high levels of illiteracy and educational disadvantage. As Community Law Partnership points out, we are talking about some very complex areas of law. I therefore hope that the Minister will look sympathetically on the amendments, which would protect one of the most vulnerable minority-ethnic groups in this country.

[Lord Pannick]

When the Minister comes to reply, will he clarify how these provisions will operate? Notwithstanding the provisions that are being debated today, is it the case that Gypsies and Travellers will remain entitled to seek legal aid to challenge acts or omissions of public authorities under paragraph 17 of the judicial review, and remain entitled to challenge under paragraph 20, which relates to convention rights, in the same way as other litigants? Is it the case that the provisions we are debating will not prevent Gypsies and Travellers claiming legal aid if they have proper grounds for contending that they are not trespassers? I would be grateful if the Minister would clarify those matters, because they have a considerable bearing on the fairness of the provisions that are under challenge through these amendments.

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, the Committee owes a debt of gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, and my noble friend Lady Whitaker for bringing forward these amendments for debate in Committee today.

Most of the cuts to social welfare legal aid appear at best naive and at worst socially and economically disastrous. However, the cuts with which these amendments deal—subject, of course, to the answers to the questions that the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, has just asked the Minister—unfortunately, appear maliciously, deliberately and uniquely to target a group which, as the Committee has heard, is one of the most marginalised in our country. It is ironic—more than ironic, it is distressing—that in a society where popular and governmental discrimination against groups of people is, thankfully, becoming rarer and rarer, the tolerance and acceptance which we think is the mark of a civilised society does not seem to apply to this group of people.

Gypsy and Traveller communities do not come in for an easy time, whether it is from the press, which seems to delight in portraying them as villains or an irredeemably alien culture, or from politicians, who have not done enough to help these communities preserve their way of life and certainly have not done enough to ensure sufficiency in the provision of housing.

Every victory for this community—as, for example, the acceptance in April last year that local authority sites should be subject to the Mobile Homes Act 1983 —has been very hard won. Legal aid has played a significant part in these victories and in establishing these rights and ensuring that they are rightfully and lawfully exerted.

Although the Government have claimed that the exemptions they have put in place are to deal with squatters—a subject to which we shall no doubt return in Part 3—everyone knows that at least a quarter of the Gypsy and Traveller population who live in caravans do not live on authorised sites. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, referred to that in opening his amendment. Many believe that this population, due to an acute crisis in the availability of sites, has little option but to trespass. If the Government’s intention is specifically to disfranchise a protected group which is already, as I have argued, much maligned, I suspect that it will end up causing much more trouble than it is worth, and that Gypsy and Traveller communities will continue to express their culture.

The Bill fails to give these communities a basic ability to stand up to oppressive behaviour by public authorities—and we have seen that kind of behaviour, I am afraid—and, frankly, it is unacceptable to mortgage the future of these communities for the purposes of the Bill. Legal aid has played an important part in gaining whatever benefits these communities have, and it would be a tragedy if they were taken away.

15:45

[The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Wallace of Tankerness)]

My Lords, we have had an important debate. As the noble Lord, Lord Alton, said, it is no surprise that the amendment was moved by my noble friend Lord Avebury, whose record over the best part of half a century in standing up for the rights of Gypsies and Travelling people is well recorded. As I understand it, he continues to be the secretary of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Gypsy Roma Travellers. I understand that the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, is vice-chairman of that group. We have heard important views on wider issues, not exclusively on legal aid. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, raised the important educational issues relating to Gypsies and Travelling people.

I will focus on the amendments and the impact on legal aid. Amendments 73, 74, 75 and 76 go together as a package. They would ensure that legal aid remains available in relation to possession and eviction matters for persons who are clearly trespassers on the property or land where they reside. As has been pointed out, the Bill currently excludes such persons from receiving legal aid under paragraph 28.

While we are generally retaining legal aid where a person is at immediate risk of losing their home, the Government do not consider it appropriate for the taxpayer to provide funding for individuals to try to resist removal where they unarguably entered and have remained on the property or site as a trespasser. On a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, paragraph 28 states:

“if there are no grounds on which it can be argued … that the individual is occupying the vehicle or structure otherwise than as a trespasser, and … that the individual’s occupation of the vehicle or structure began otherwise than as a trespasser”.

I hope the noble Lord will be reassured that Gypsies and Travellers will have access to legal aid under paragraph 28 in relation to loss of home if there are any grounds to argue that they are not trespassers. That is certainly the intention. It is quite clear that that is what will be delivered.

I emphasise again that legal aid will remain available for eviction and possession cases where there are any grounds to argue that the client has not entered and remained as a trespasser. On the other point, we are also retaining legal aid for most judicial review cases as set in out the Bill, and also—as the noble Lord asked—with regard to breach of convention rights by public authorities. I can confirm that Gypsies and Travellers will continue to have access to legal aid in terms of that particular paragraph of the schedule, along with others.

My noble friend also referred in his amendment to the Mobile Homes Act cases. Amendment 77 seeks to bring into scope legally aided advice for all matters arising from the Mobile Homes Act 1983. That Act gives rights to residents who have agreements with site owners to live in their own mobile homes on site. As I have explained, we have generally retained legal aid where the individual is at immediate risk of homelessness. This includes possession and eviction from a mobile home site. However, the consequence of the amendment would be to extend legal aid to cover all matters under the Mobile Homes Act 1983. It would make legal aid available for what we regard as lower priority matters where legal aid is not in our view justified, for example disputes about the sale or inheritance of mobile homes.

The point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, was on the more important issue of harassment. I hope I can reassure her that legal aid is available for harassment injunctions under Sections 3 or 3A of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 and, by extension, under paragraph 32 of Part 1 of the schedule.

[Baroness Whitaker]

I am grateful to the Minister for that point, but perhaps I may refer back to his remarks about judicial review, in response to the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. I am still not exactly clear what happens when it is not quite an eviction but a matter that would lead to an eviction. For instance, would judicial review be available to defend a county court possession action or a failure by a local authority to follow or have regard to relevant government guidance? It is those cases that lead to eviction but are not exactly eviction actions—and indeed the Gypsy is a trespasser on the prima facie case but, after judicial review, might be found not to be a trespasser.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, I will double-check on that. I would in no way wish to mislead, but on judicial review paragraph 17 indicates that,

“civil legal services are to be provided in respect of an enactment, decision, act or omission”.

It is certainly my understanding that that is the case, but I shall conclude my speech and double-check that. That paragraph of Schedule 1 will apply and entitle Gypsies and Travellers in the same way as it entitles others. I am as certain as I can be that that is the case, but the noble Baroness gave some very specific examples. Perhaps the best thing for me to do would be to set out in writing to her, and circulate it to those who have taken part in our debate, precisely the position in regard to the very specific cases that she raised in her intervention. I hope that she will accept that. There is certainly a general power or provision to bring within scope judicial review cases, and I believe that that addresses the point, but I want to be absolutely certain with regard to the specific issues that she raised. Obviously, other Members of the Committee who have contributed to the debate will be copied into that letter.

Amendment 79 relates to this and brings in issues of planning. I hope that I can reassure the Committee, and my noble friend in particular, that it is unnecessary. Planning matters that concern eviction from home will remain in scope under paragraph 28 of Part 1 of Schedule 1. Accordingly, legal aid will, for example, remain available to defend an application for an injunction to evict a person from a site under Section 187B of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 or for a planning appeal under Sections 288 and 289 that might result in the individual being legally required to leave their home, including the land where the home is located.

The noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, and my noble friend in moving his amendment raised the Dale Farm-type situations. To look at the legal issue that arises in relation to the amendment, we are retaining legal aid for eviction cases, including eviction from a mobile home or a caravan site. Legal aid will remain available for eviction from an unauthorised development, subject to the means and merits tests, as apply in other cases. It is important to distinguish those cases from situations where people have set up unauthorised encampments. So there is a difference between an unauthorised development and an unauthorised encampment on a site that they neither own nor have permission to enter. In these circumstances, they would be outwith the scope, as I have indicated; but if the issue is one of an unauthorised development on property that they own and have a legitimate right to be there, legal aid would be available.

Amendments 87 and 88 refer to “trespass to land” in Part 2 of Schedule 1. Amendment 88 concerns cases where the client is trespassing on land, including land surrounding a building, but is not trespassing in the building itself. I recall in a debate that we had last week under an amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Carlile of Berriew that we sought to reiterate that the reference in this part of Schedule 1, specifically to “trespass to land”, is not intended to generally exclude matters falling within Part 1 of Schedule 1 that involve trespass to land but to generally prevent funding for the tort of trespass to land. I indicated during last week’s Committee debate that we are giving active consideration to the exclusions in Part 2 of Schedule 1 generally to ensure that the drafting fully delivers on that particular intention. Clearly, we will look at the particular issue raised in regard to the specifics of trespass to land in this context when looking at whether the Bill as drafted delivers what is intended.

Part 2 of Schedule 1 generally excludes funding for tort claims, because they are primarily concerned with money and alternative funding arrangements can be made available through conditional fee agreements. However, tort claims for trespass to land are not excluded under the Bill where they concern allegations of the abuse of position or power or a significant breach of human rights by a public authority.

The debate has ranged more widely, and I am sure that if the House has not debated the wider issues in recent times, they merit a debate sooner rather than later. The Government understand the issues here and consulted on their new draft planning policy for Traveller sites over last summer. The Department for Communities and Local Government is considering all the consultation responses and intends to publish the new policy as soon as possible. Let me just put on the record that the Government are taking measures to ensure fair and effective provision of authorised sites for Travellers more generally, which seemed to be one of the issues being raised, including providing £60 million in England over the current spending period to help local authorities and other registered providers to build new Traveller sites in consultation with local communities. Councils will also be given incentives to deliver new housing, including Traveller sites, through the new homes bonus scheme.

For the reasons given, and with some of the reassurances that I have given on the scope being not quite as narrow as has perhaps been thought, I hope that my noble friend will agree to withdraw his amendment. As I have indicated, I will certainly respond—

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

Before the noble and learned Lord completes his remarks, I asked him a couple of specific questions. I realise that he may not have the answers to them now, but they would help us to keep this issue in context, especially when we get to Report. He has just given some information about the amount of money that the Government are going to spend, and that is welcome. However, could he in due course tell us more about the numbers of unauthorised sites and how many such cases using legal aid there have been—perhaps over the past decade, and certainly in the course of the past year—and what that has cost the public purse?

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I apologise to the noble Lord for omitting to address that. When writing I cannot be certain either that the information is available in the form that he wishes or how easy it might be to extract what the specific nature of some of those cases was, but to the extent that we are able to provide the relevant information I will certainly do so at the same time as I respond to the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker.

[Lord Avebury]

My Lords, first, I must express deep gratitude to all those noble Lords who spoke in favour of this amendment: the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, the noble Lords, Lord Howarth and Lord Alton, the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and, finally, the noble Lord, Lord Bach. There was not a single contrary voice in the whole debate and your Lordships have demonstrated the concern which arises from these amendments and from the situation of Gypsies and Travellers in general.

In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, there are in fact 2,000 caravans on unauthorised sites, which are therefore legally homeless at the moment. As the noble Lord, Lord Bach, said, the problem is that they have no option but to trespass. The answer that my noble and learned friend the Minister gave to the first of these amendments, the ones which deal with legal aid for persons liable to eviction, was not satisfactory because that was the whole point of the amendments. It is all very well to say that they will have access to legal aid under paragraph 28 if they are not trespassers, but all of those 2,000 caravans, except those which are on sites owned by the Gypsies and Travellers themselves, are in fact trespassers and have no option.

When people are thrown off a site such as Dale Farm—there is another one at the moment in Meriden, where the local authority is similarly kicking people off a site that they own and have developed themselves—they will have no alternative but to camp on the roadside or to try to sandwich themselves into an authorised site where there happens to be a little space left on one of the pitches, only to find that the local authority there takes steps to secure their removal immediately.

16:00

I am grateful to my noble and learned friend for his remarks on the challenges to an injunction under Section 187B or an order under Sections 288 and 289, but I asked him whether it was not preferable to have these spelt out in the Bill, and I hope that between now and the next stage the Government might consider the wording necessary to do so. I believe that it would be possible to quote my noble and learned friend’s remarks in a court of law if there were any doubt about the matter, but it is always best to have things spelt out in statute if you can.

The debate has raised issues that go far wider. In concluding his remarks, my noble and learned friend spoke about the £60 million that was allocated by the Department for Communities and Local Government for the construction of new sites. Unfortunately, very little progress seems likely to be made on that front; in none of the cases where grants have been made has there been either an application for planning permission or steps to identify the land.

I rang around some of the local authorities and housing associations that had received money under that heading. They all told me that they were at an extremely preliminary stage and that when they get around to identifying particular pieces of land, they will come across the problem that so many of your Lordships have spelt out today: there will be immediate opposition from local residents that will make it very difficult for them to proceed. In spite of the fact that this money is available, your Lordships should not imagine that it will lead to any immediate progress on the provision of those sites—nor, if by some miracle they were completed overnight, would they solve the problem. Speaking from memory, I think there are 600-odd pitches in the allocations but altogether there are 2,000 caravans on unauthorised sites, so they would cope with only 30 per cent of the need that exists.

In these circumstances, it is vital that Gypsies and Travellers have access to legal aid for all the purposes dealt with in this amendment. I hope that before we get to the next stage my noble and learned friend and others in the Government will consider what we have said today and think about restoring the right to legal aid, particularly in the amendments that are dealt with early on in this group. As far as we have got, though, I am grateful to my noble and learned friend, and I am sure that we will have further advice from the Community Law Partnership when we come to the next stage of the Bill. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 73 withdrawn.

Amendment 74 not moved.

Amendments 74A and 74B

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

74A: Schedule 1, page 132, line 2, leave out “there are no grounds on which it can be argued”

74B: Schedule 1, page 132, line 4, at beginning insert “there are no grounds on which it can be argued”

Amendments 74A and 74B agreed.

Amendment 74C not moved.

Amendment 74D

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

74D: Schedule 1, page 132, line 6, at beginning insert “there are no grounds on which it can be argued”

Amendment 74D agreed.

Amendments 75 to 77H not moved.

Amendment 77J

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

77J: Schedule 1, page 133, line 21, after “other” insert “vehicle or”

Amendment 77J agreed.

Amendments 77K to 78B not moved.

Amendments 78C to 78E

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

78C: Schedule 1, page 134, line 28, after “2003” insert “(“the 2003 Act”)”

78D: Schedule 1, page 134, line 31, after “1978” insert “(“the 1978 Act”)”

78E: Schedule 1, page 134, line 31, at end insert—
“(4) The references in sub-paragraph (1) to a sexual offence include—
(a) incitement to commit a sexual offence,(b) an offence committed by a person under Part 2 of the Serious Crime Act 2007 (encouraging or assisting crime) in relation to which a sexual offence is the offence which the person intended or believed would be committed,(c) conspiracy to commit a sexual offence, and(d) an attempt to commit a sexual offence.(5) In this paragraph references to a sexual offence include conduct which would be an offence under a provision of the 2003 Act or section 1 of the 1978 Act but for the fact that it took place before that provision or section came into force.
(6) Conduct falls within the definition of a sexual offence for the purposes of this paragraph whether or not there have been criminal proceedings in relation to the conduct and whatever the outcome of any such proceedings.”

Amendments 78C to 78E agreed.

Amendment 79 not moved.

Amendment 79A

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

79A: Schedule 1, page 136, line 9, at end insert “or a previous discrimination enactment”

Amendment 79A agreed.

Amendment 79B not moved.

Amendment 79C

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

79C: Schedule 1, page 136, line 14, at end insert—
“Definitions( ) In this paragraph “previous discrimination enactment” means—
(a) the Equal Pay Act 1970;(b) the Sex Discrimination Act 1975;(c) the Race Relations Act 1976;(d) the Disability Discrimination Act 1995;(e) the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003 (S.I. 2003/1660);(f) the Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003 (S.I. 2003/1661);(g) the Equality Act 2006;(h) the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 (S.I. 2006/1031);(i) the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007 (S.I. 2007/1263).( ) The reference in sub-paragraph (1) to contravention of the Equality Act 2010 or a previous discrimination enactment includes—
(a) breach of a term modified by, or included by virtue of, a provision that is an equality clause or equality rule for the purposes of the Equal Pay Act 1970 or the Equality Act 2010, and(b) breach of a provision that is a non-discrimination rule for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010.”

Amendment 79C agreed.

Amendments 80 to 81 not moved.

House resumed.

Iran

Tuesday 24th January 2012 Lords Chamber

Statement

16:06

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Howell of Guildford)]

My Lords, I should like to repeat the Answer to an Urgent Question in another place.

“Mr Speaker, yesterday I attended the European Union Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels, where member states agreed a new and unprecedented set of sanctions against Iran. These include a phased oil embargo, a partial asset freeze of the Central Bank of Iran, measures against Iran’s petrochemical sector and a ban on Iranian transactions involving gold. This is a major increase in the peaceful, legitimate pressure on Iran to return to negotiations over its nuclear programme. It follows the financial measures that the United Kingdom imposed on 21 November and the widening of EU measures on 1 December.

Sanctions measures, often close to those of the European Union, have been adopted by the United States, Canada, South Korea, Norway, Switzerland and Japan. These are in addition to the sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council itself. The Australian Foreign Minister has already announced this morning, at our joint press conference, that his country will replicate these new EU sanctions, and we will urge other nations around the world to do the same.

Iran is in defiance of six UN Security Council resolutions that call on it to suspend its uranium enrichment programme and to enter into negotiations. Its recent decision to enrich uranium to 20 per cent at an underground site at Qom demonstrates the urgent need to intensify diplomatic pressure on Iran to return to negotiations. This is a programme that can have no plausible civilian use and which Iran tried to keep secret. The International Atomic Energy Agency has expressed serious concerns about the possible military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear programme, most recently in a report last November, and Iran is now in breach of 11 resolutions of the IAEA board of governors.

Sanctions are a means to an end, not an end in themselves. Our objective remains a diplomatic solution that gives the world confidence that Iran’s nuclear programme is for purely peaceful purposes. We are ready to talk at any point if Iran puts aside its preconditions and returns to negotiations. Iranian Vice-President Rahimi was reported as saying in December:

‘If sanctions are adopted against Iranian oil, not a drop of oil will pass through the Strait of Hormuz’.

However, it must be borne in mind that 95 per cent of Iran’s oil exports, representing over 80 per cent of its foreign trade earnings, transits the Strait of Hormuz. It is very much against Iran’s interests to seek to close the strait to oil exports.

Britain maintains a constant presence in the region as part of our enduring contribution to Gulf security. The Royal Navy has been conducting such patrols since 1980. At the weekend, HMS ‘Argyll’ and a French vessel joined a US carrier group transiting through the Strait of Hormuz. This was a routine movement but it underlined the unwavering international commitment to maintaining rights of passage under international law. Any attempt by Iran to block the strait would be both illegal and unsuccessful.

We call on Iran to answer the questions raised by the International Atomic Energy Agency; to adhere to UN Security Council resolutions; to suspend its enrichment programme; and to return to the negotiations that are the only way of reaching a peaceful and long-term settlement to its dispute with the international community”.

16:09

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for repeating the Statement on the EU, Iran and the Strait of Hormuz, made in the other place by the Foreign Secretary.

We on these Benches welcome the extensive international engagement in this policy, especially from our European partners, but also from other long-standing friends and allies. I was, of course, pleased to learn of the announcement by the Australian Foreign Minister this morning. Will the Minister outline how much support this policy has managed to garner at international level, particularly from Russia, China, India and Japan? The ban by Russia and China on supplying military equipment as well as training and maintenance is very welcome, but will the Minister say what assurances they are giving that this will be continued, and what influence they are exerting on Tehran to ensure a more responsible attitude from the regime?

On the diplomatic front, we have seen reports that at a meeting in Moscow on 18 January, Russian officials presented the Iranians with a proposed framework for negotiations with the P5+1, probably based on Russian proposals made in August. Can the Minister inform the House of any response the Government have received from Russia? The Government and the EU have rightly made it clear that we have no quarrel with the Iranian people. Before the Arab spring, we had the green movement in Iran, in which we saw huge numbers on the streets of Tehran and other Iranian cities seeking reform. Although this protest was barbarically repressed, it showed the considerable public alienation in Iran from the regime. In that light, what assessment have the Government made of the state of public opinion in Iran and of divisions in the political elite? What weight do the Government give to the threat by Iran to attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz? Do the Government intend to participate in any international naval task force to keep the strait open? What agreement have the Government obtained from other P5 countries for such action as well as from those in the Gulf? What reaction has there been from other countries in the Gulf to the threat to the Strait of Hormuz? Given the defence cuts, can the Government guarantee that vessels could be made available for such operational activity?

The policy position as set out yesterday by the former Leader of your Lordships' House, my noble friend Lady Ashton, in her capacity as the EU’s high representative on foreign affairs, is undeniably correct. However, there is no doubt either that the crisis in the Gulf could further weaken worldwide economic growth, so can the Minister outline the reaction from the main oil-consuming countries in Asia, which have a high dependence on Iranian oil, to the policy of a ban on crude oil imports from Iran and—this is almost as important—the export of refined products back to Iran? Given the disproportionate effect that these necessary sanctions will have on the vulnerable economies of southern Europe, will the Minister indicate what measures are being taken to protect them?

Finally, in the event of a crisis in the Gulf having a material impact on the world economy, what indications have the Government had from the Chancellor of the Exchequer that in such circumstances contingency plans are in place to deal with any economic effects? The position in the region, the attitude being struck by Iran and the economic impact of any implementation of the threat by Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz are unquestionably serious. Your Lordships’ House and we on these Benches look forward to the Government continuing to keep this House fully informed.

00:00

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

My Lords, that was a formidable list of questions. I will seek to answer them all as best I can. If I leave any out, I know that the noble Baroness will understand and we can correspond later.

The first question on which she rightly focused is how much international and global support there is for this programme. Clearly, if embargoes are undermined by other countries continuing to trade, this weakens the situation. We must be realistic. The agreements are with the list of countries that I read out and with the EU in a very united form. However, the big consumers of Iranian oil tend to be in Asia, particularly China and Japan. How much support can we expect from them? The Japanese have indicated that on a phased basis they would be able certainly not to increase any imports from Iran and possibly to run them down. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has indicated—indeed, within my hearing in Abu Dhabi last week—his country’s strong opposition to Iran acquiring nuclear weapons.

From that it ought to follow that China will be realistic about not increasing and maybe reducing its imports of oil from Iran. Statistics indicate that China has already run down its imports to some extent, and we will have to see how that develops, but very clear messages have been conveyed to the People’s Republic of China that as a responsible world power and a member of the WTO—and in its own view and those of others, a burgeoning superpower—it has to behave in a constructive and responsible way, in line with its own wishes to prevent Iran becoming a nuclear power.

Other countries involved are big customers of Iran, including India, from which I do not think there have been any indications so far on this matter. There are also smaller customers such as Sri Lanka. However, the big customers are the two countries I have mentioned, and their reaction has been as I outlined in my previous few comments.

The Russian position has been shifting, but I am not sure that I can comment on the detailed proposals made on 18 January to which the noble Baroness referred. I shall certainly examine that further, but if pressure is going to be effective in bringing Iran back to the negotiating table, the full support of the Russians is clearly also required. We are working on that as hard as we can.

Public opinion in Iran is very hard to assess. We all read reports of great differences of view in high circles in Iran between the mullahs and Mr Ahmadinejad, but it is hard to assess these things. My own judgment, which I think is shared, is that generally Iran feels that it has a right to develop a nuclear capability and will press ahead. It will take a lot of pressure, which is now being mounted, to bring Iran back to the negotiating table to discuss how its actions can be confined to civil nuclear power, in accordance with the IEA regulations rather than in defiance of them.

The noble Baroness asked about our defence capability. HMS “Argyll”, as my right honourable friend said, moved to the area at the weekend. The naval presence in the Gulf has been continuous for a long time and is contributing to security. Your Lordships can rest assured that all necessary contributions to the forces, which include a major American force and French ships, will be entirely what is required to meet the situation—the situation being the threat from Iranian Ministers that they would attempt, if they could, to block the Strait of Hormuz. That would be an illegal act blocking an international trade round, and will be prevented and resisted.

Oil-consuming countries face problems because some have been fairly reliant on Iranian oil. That is less so in Europe, as I have indicated, although Greece has a heavy reliance, and it is for that reason in particular that this embargo on oil is being phased in over a number of months up to 1 July, rather than being brought in instantaneously. Iran therefore has these problems. Italy is importing Iranian oil as a repayment for previous exports, and that too will have to be phased in. Japan will also need a phasing-in operation, although it is not exactly clear at what pace that will happen.

The noble Baroness mentioned contingency plans. We certainly have contingency plans, both at the financial level and in relation to the flow of oil and other energy supplies. Indeed, there are contingency plans in relation to the whole physical matter of closing the Strait of Hormuz. Should that be attempted, I believe it would be frustrated; but if it were to be attempted, there are other means of getting oil out of the Gulf area. There are the pipelines west to the Red Sea from Yanbu, and coming on stream—I do not think it is yet fully technically commissioned, but it is nearly ready—is the Fujairah pipeline, which crosses the corner of United Arab Emirates and bypasses the strait altogether. That can carry 1.9 million to 2.1 million barrels a day. So there are ways of moving oil—not at the volume that is going through the strait at present, which is about 17 per cent of the world's daily oil supplies, but many contingencies can be developed, and we are certainly participating in them at this stage.

16:20

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that Iran is not currently in breach of its NPT obligations in seeking to enrich uranium up to 20 per cent? Does he therefore accept that a return to negotiations, including the offer on the table of Iran maintaining a civil nuclear capability under a heavy IAEA inspection regime to ensure that no weaponisation occurs, is what we should be aiming for? Does he agree with US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s comments last month that an Israeli attack could consume the Middle East in a confrontation and a conflict that we would surely regret? What discussions are we having with the Israeli Government to the effect that any action they might take will embroil them and the rest of the region in a wider conflagration that they may deeply regret?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

To answer my noble friend’s last question first, it has been the constant position of Her Majesty's Government that we would like Israel to come out fully and join the non-proliferation treaty if, as is widely alleged, it has nuclear weapons. We have not been given any firm facts on that, but it is an important aspect. As to Israeli action, that is constantly debated. Again, we have not been hesitant in making clear that action by Israel against Iran would lead to very dangerous developments. We take a very strong view that that is not the way forward and is at all costs to be avoided. That is the position vis-à-vis Israel.

My noble friend is absolutely right that one of Iran’s claimed excuses, shall we say, for pushing ahead—one of its reasons for defying IAEA resolutions and UN resolutions, as it has—is that it should have nuclear weapons because it says that Israel has a nuclear weapon. That reality must be faced. My noble friend is not entirely right in saying that Iran is not in defiance of resolutions; it is; it has broken resolutions in the past. I hope that I did not misinterpret what she said on that. This is the problem: we have a regime in Tehran that cannot be trusted and has been declaring that it was co-operating and collaborating with NPT and IAEA resolutions when it was not, as has been revealed by various alarming discoveries along the way.

[Baroness Afshar]

My Lords—

[Lord Gilbert]

My Lords, should we not all calm down a little about this? The Iranians think that they have total justification for possessing nuclear weapons. For the life of me, I cannot see any case against their having a nuclear weapon. Who on earth are they going to use it against? If anyone says Israel, you cannot imagine a more suicidal act for a country to perform than to launch a nuclear weapon against Israel. That would mean the total incineration of Iran. We ought to realise that with the Iranians we are dealing with people who deal in braggadocio, who say things they do not mean that sound great on television for local consumption. We should calm down—let them get on with it and waste their money.

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

The noble Lord is pointing to what one would regard as a certain reality: people should not behave in a suicidal fashion. One hopes that he is right. Similarly, one hopes that what might be called black swan events and catastrophes do not suddenly develop, almost accidentally, out of the situation. The fact remains that it is very dangerous. The proliferation of nuclear weapons would not stop at Iran if it goes full tilt in that direction. There have been indications from a leading Saudi spokesman in the past few days that, should this kind of development occur, Saudi Arabia would have to consider its position on nuclear weapons, and proliferation would proceed. The noble Lord says that proliferation does not matter because somehow mutually assured destruction and mutual deterrents will prevail. He could be right but he could be disastrously wrong.

[Noble Lords]

My Lords—

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Afshar, has been trying to get in, and we can then come to the Conservative Benches.

[Baroness Afshar]

I declare an interest as someone who was born in Iran and still works very closely with Iranian academics. My worry is that in Iran views are very divided about nuclear weapons, but the moment there is a threat of sanctions and a threat against Iran, it is likely that even among those who are absolutely opposed—I work with the resistance movement—a great many would back the Government. The fear of Israel is very real, and the idea that there is one law for Israel and one for Iran is absolutely understood by Iranians. The idea that Britain will bring its Army or Navy will be seen as armed defence of Israel. That would undermine any negotiations on the table. It would be very much better if negotiations were conducted perhaps a bit more quietly and with less threat. As an academic, I know that we are suffering enormously because brilliant Iranian students who want to do postgraduate work in this country cannot do so. As someone who came to this country as a student I can tell you that sometimes we turn good.

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

The noble Baroness speaks with a lot of experience and understanding in her analysis of the psychology of the Iranian policy-makers and the Iranian Government, which, as she rightly said, is a divided house in itself. All kinds of internal conflicts are going on inside Iran. As to the question of getting back to negotiation, that is something that we all want. The aim of this policy, as my right honourable friend in the other place has made clear this afternoon, is to bring Iran back to the negotiating table, and to do so in ways that will then lead to a sensible discussion of its nuclear programme and recognising its rights, if conducted properly and in accordance with NPT and IAEA resolutions and requirements, to have civil nuclear power. That is recognised, but negotiation there must be. Bringing Iran back to the table is the task. So far, doing that by saying, “Please come back”, and through the normal diplomatic niceties has proved totally inadequate. That is why we have come to the point when the pressure must be increased and the Iranians must be brought back to the table. Any suggestion that instead they will grow more violent and take action to close international waterways must be totally rejected and opposed.

[The Marquess of Lothian]

My Lords, will my noble friend tell the House what active consideration is being given by the Government to the proposal made this week by Prince Turki al-Faisal of Saudi Arabia that the international community should pursue the concept of a totally nuclear-weapon-free zone, properly policed, that would include both Iran and Israel?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

This is an idea, an aim and an ambition that the Government fully share. The idea of a WMD or nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East is one to which we certainly subscribe, and this must be a longer-term aim. How we get from here to there is, of course, the problem. Prince Turki al-Faisal is an extremely wise and perceptive commentator and certainly I read very closely everything he had to say on the matter. That would be the ideal. How we would get from here to there would certainly include how we deal with the situation not only in Iran but also in Israel.

[Lord Luce]

My Lords, I fully support these robust sanctions. Will the Minister not agree that there seems to be an ineluctable slide towards conflict, which could erupt from an incident of any kind? Iran is a very important country with a remarkable history. Is there not a very strong case for telling the Iranians that we should resume negotiations not only on nuclear issues but on much broader matters of mutual concern in the region, and on bilateral relations?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

This kind of approach would be very good, if we could get Iran to recognise that it must conform to the IAEA requirements and if we could have some trust and reassurance that it is not moving surreptitiously to the full weaponisation of its nuclear programme. If that assurance was there and if Iran was prepared to talk, we could certainly develop closer relations with what, after all, is a very great country that deserves respect—although it forfeits it by some of its actions—for its history and prominence in the region, and we could move in that direction. However, to get Iran even to come to the table on that basis has so far proved impossible.

[Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean]

My Lords, I regret to say that I very much agreed with the Minister when he rightly said that whichever part of the Iranian Government one looks at believes that Iran has the right to develop nuclear weapons. The problem with that is that it does not stop with the conflict with Israel; it drips into the conflict right across the Gulf, including, as he said, Saudi Arabia. Perhaps I may ask him about the short-term issue of access to oil. Can he tell us anything about Saudi Arabia’s undertaking to make up the shortfall in any Iranian crude, and whether its undertaking to try to hold the international price at $100 a barrel has been dealt with officially by Her Majesty's Government and that of Saudi Arabia?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

We cannot yet to talk in terms of undertakings, but there have been indications. Obviously it is up to Saudi Arabia and other major oil producers in the region, such as Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, to undertake to make up the shortfall. The indications are that this will be possible but we are not yet at the stage where I can say that undertakings have been officially agreed; they have not.

There is also a problem of matching the quality of oil concerned. As the noble Baroness knows, although the Iranian oil that Greece, for instance, has been heavily reliant on is slightly sour, the make-up oil from Saudi Arabia would be considerably sourer and would carry a much heavier sulphur content as well, so there would be difficulties for refiners. The usual complexities that arise when one moves oil flows around inside the oil market would occur, of the kind that I have just described. Therefore, I cannot say that there is a neat package of additional oil supplies ready to come into place. One has to realise that the Iranian oil does not necessarily disappear; it will not stop being produced and will probably continue to enter the market, although one imagines at a certain discount in relation to the major customers such as China.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard]

My Lords, the effect of sanctions may be to cause opinion in Iran to coalesce behind the Government, the risk to which noble Lords’ attention has been drawn by an expert. Will the Government do everything they can as imaginatively as possible to make clear that we have no quarrel with the Iranian people and that the quarrel is purely with the regime? Will the Government also urge their European partners to avoid unnecessary irritants in relations with Turkey, a country which has enormous experience of peaceful coexistence with Iran and a country whose expertise and experience is extremely important to us at this difficult time?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I give a most emphatic yes to both those propositions. Indeed, in relation to the second one, it is very important that we work very closely with Turkey, which has indicated very clearly that the idea of Iran becoming a fully weaponised nuclear power is extremely unwelcome to it and that it will combine with the necessary actions and strategies to prevent that. At present, the main strategy is pressure through sanctions, but there are other tracks of diplomacy to develop as well. One can pursue more than one track in these matters, but this is the one that we are now engaged on, which we hope will bring results.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, I endorse very strongly what the noble Lord, Lord Luce, said. Looking at the practicalities of the immediate threat, can my noble friend assure the House that there are adequate minesweeping capacities should the Strait of Hormuz be blocked by the Iranians?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

My noble friend asks for assurances. I can give him assurances that all the necessary deployments and efforts will be made to achieve that. We are advised that it can be assured that any mines that are planted, for instance, by night or surreptitiously, will be very swiftly removed. There is the conviction that there can be no sustained blocking of the Strait of Hormuz and that any attempt to do so will be defeated. That is what I can tell my noble friend. To go beyond that to say that everything is perfect, nothing will be challenged and that there will be no difficulties would, of course, sound incredible, and I do not intend to give that assurance.

[Lord Kilclooney]

My Lords, the Minister said that there are no firm facts that Israel has nuclear armaments. Are there any firm facts that Iran has nuclear armaments? Has the European Union applied any sanctions against Israel? If not, why not?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

The noble Lord is raising the broader issue that we have touched on in these discussions and in many debates about the position of Israel and the position of Iran. On the second point, we are pretty sure that Iran is still short of achieving nuclear weapons, but we are also fairly well advised by the IAEA and other bodies that it is on the path to doing so. As far as the Israeli situation is concerned, I was stating the official position. Obviously, it is common talk that Israel possesses these weapons, but it has not officially asserted or confirmed that it does. Therefore, in terms of international facts—and I must use my words carefully—it cannot be asserted without question that it has nuclear weapons. That is the unsatisfactory position at present, and it is one from which we would all like to move. Of course, in the longer term, a middle-eastern nuclear-free zone would take us in that direction, but how we get there is the issue before us now and before all diplomats in the free world.

[Lord Clinton-Davis]

Is it not obvious, as the Minister said, that doing nothing and saying nothing is not an option at the moment? Is it not vital that Britain’s voice must be heard and that the Government are doing exactly that? Is there any indication of the Iranian Government acceding to the reasonable international pressure which is being employed at present? If not, is there any possibility of that in the future?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

We clearly hope so. That is the aim of the policy. At the moment it does not look like that. It may be in the next few days that, as has happened in the more distant past, the Iranian authorities will come forward and say, “Yes, let’s return to the negotiating table”. They may add all sorts of impossible conditions and qualifications that make that difficult, or they may see sense and, in the interests of the Iranian people—with whom we have certainly have no quarrel; I should have made that clear in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Kerr—they will begin discussions in a sensible, calm way on how we prevent the whole nuclear proliferation pattern running away into a horror story in the future for the Middle East.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, there is a very detailed calculation going on at the moment in the United States and elsewhere about the difference between the very bad impact of Iran having nuclear weapons, and about proliferation and so on, the impact of attacks on her nuclear system and what it is believed will be the short-term effects of these. Does the Minister agree that that is a very dangerous calculation, because the one absolute certainty is that when you embark on war, you have no idea where that will lead?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. As Prince Turki, who we have already mentioned, said the other day, wars lead to more wars. Once we were in a pattern of violence and conflict—which might be reached by accident, which is a very terrifying prospect—there is no telling where the consequences would go. I think Prince Turki said that one consequence would be retaliation not just against the western powers but the entire Gulf state community and indeed all those who were deemed to have had any association with those who had done the attacking. Who knows where the consequences would lead? What we do know is that if we get to the point of violence, this policy will have failed and a new one will be required. That is something we are determined to avoid.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Tuesday 24th January 2012 Lords Chamber

Committee (5th Day) (Continued)

16:42

Amendment 82

Moved by

[Lord Bach]

82: Schedule 1, page 136, line 34, at end insert—
“( ) all areas of employment law not otherwise covered in this Schedule”

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, I beg to move Amendment 82, in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Beecham. We come now to employment law, which, if the Government have their way, would be taken out of scope of legal aid altogether.

As a country we spend £4 million a year on legal aid for employment matters. That goes to help some 13,300 people at around £300 per head. Representation, as opposed to advice, is provided only to a handful of people a year, measured in the dozens not the thousands, and at pretty negligible cost. The kind of issues at stake will be well known to the Committee; they include unfair and wrongful dismissal, redundancy, employment contracts, discrimination, strike action, data protection and employee confidentiality, and wage issues.

These issues are of importance to the individual who has become a victim of an unlawful practice, but the Government consider them insufficiently important to merit public money—there seems no other interpretation of the Government’s intentions. Further, the Government consider that there are alternative sources of funding available for these cases. The Government’s consultation document says:

“We note that damages-based agreements are available in employment cases and that there are other sources of help available in this area of law. For example, some Trade Union members are usually entitled to legal assistance, the employer may be willing to engage in civil mediation (which is sometimes paid for by the employer), or, if the dispute concerns unfair dismissal or flexible working disputes, and there are no complex legal issues, the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) provides a free arbitration service. The presence of these alternatives is not determinative, but makes the provision of legal aid in these cases less likely to be justified”.

I cannot resist the comment that this must be one of the first times that a Conservative Minister and Secretary of State have plotted together to drive people into the arms of the trades unions, but so be it.

16:45

More seriously, we have to acknowledge on all sides that the majority of British workers are no longer members of trade unions. Damages-based agreements are not yet widely available and, we believe, open up the possibility of predatory behaviour by interested parties. In looking at the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal’s website, it does not take long to find evidence of pretty dodgy employment law claims management companies taking huge chunks of people’s damages—and that is before the lawyers get paid. If this part of the Bill goes through, the consequence will be that a large proportion of employees who have been dealt with unlawfully will end up representing themselves and will not have the benefit of legal advice.

When we asked government departments whether, when they are taken to a tribunal, they would typically be represented, hardly surprisingly, the answer was a unanimous yes. Similarly, private employers will often—although certainly not always—be represented at a tribunal by lawyers, whether they are solicitors or barristers. In practice, this means the creation of a highly prejudicial inequality of arms between employees and employers. That of course can be alleviated, as we all know, by high quality advice pre-tribunal, but even that cheap but successful option is no longer to be provided. We argue that in real terms it will mean an erosion in individual employees’ rights, especially those at the margin—for example, those on minimum wage and those who are most vulnerable. Those firms which choose to behave in the worst possible way by playing fast and loose with their employees’ rights may well be advantaged. It could be a bit of a race to the bottom, which is a cliché but precisely what happens when we start restricting access to justice. Good companies and employers that treat their employees with respect and that honour the law will find themselves at a competitive disadvantage to those who employ predatory practices. We do not believe that it is in anyone’s interests to encourage such a system.

I am afraid that it looks as though a concerted effort to curtail the rights of employees is taking place in our system. The law creates many of these rights because of the fundamental basic inequity of power between employer and employee. If these rights are to be taken away from employees gradually, that balance will shift. We have to make a decision as to whether that is a good or a bad thing. I am not talking about just the taking away of legal aid from scope; I am talking about the discussion that is going on at the moment about fees for employment tribunals, including the fee to begin a claim and the much larger, additional fee if the claim goes to hearing. I am talking about unfair dismissal and the qualifying period being doubled from one year to two years and, even though this may sound trivial, the payment of expenses to witnesses and claimants to attend an employment tribunal.

We on this side believe that such moves are unhealthy and a backward step in the very sensitive field of the employer/employee balance of power relationship. As my right honourable friend John Healey MP says today in an article in PoliticsHome, the emergence of the Trade Union Reform Campaign appears to be a rather extreme part of this process, but here we are discussing legal aid and whether it should remain in scope or be taken out of scope.

The cost of ensuring that people have good quality advice on employment rights and are able to exert those rights before a tribunal is, as I have said, £4 million a year. If those 13,000 people were not able to get some money or their job back, and if only a tenth of them went on JSA, that £4 million would immediately be spent just on that benefit. There are lots of examples of cases where employment advice has proved to be beneficial, and I want to mention a case referred to in the document London Advice Watch Report, which sets out the findings of a research project on the provision of social welfare law advice in London. The document was launched in the Palace of Westminster a couple of weeks ago, and among the speakers were my colleague Mr Andrew Slaughter MP and the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury. The document cites the following case:

“A man who had worked at a large retail chain for eight years was fired for gross misconduct after making a mistake on the till which cost the shop a very small amount of money. Tower Hamlets Law Centre helped him claim unfair dismissal and won him his job back, along with compensation for lost earnings”.

The facts of that case are incredibly simple and straightforward, and I would bet that they are replicated many times in England and Wales, but it is just this sort of case where, if advice is not given, an employee who is unfairly sacked will go without a remedy. To use the phrase again, he will be without access to justice.

We think that this is £4 million that is well spent under our legal aid system, and has been for many years. That is why it is economic, humane, just and sensible to continue this provision and why we are putting forward this amendment to keep employment law in scope. I beg to move.

[Lord Clinton-Davis]

My noble friend has put his finger on the spot. The issues we are discussing are of prime importance, particularly for people who are not members of trade unions. I hope that they would be, but they are not, and we have to face up to the facts. We are talking about people who are particularly vulnerable, and I hope that the Liberal Democrats in this House are equally concerned about this issue. Employment law should enshrine issues which are vital to protect the lives of ordinary people. In that regard those who, unwisely or wisely, are not members of trade unions should be properly protected, but they are not. Indeed, they are going to be worse off if this particularly noxious proposal is carried.

I hope that the Minister will see sense, but I have seen little sign of that. He knows that I have a high regard for him, but I am surprised that he is part of the present coalition—I thought more highly of him than that. Vulnerable people need to be protected and I am concerned that that is far from being the case at present.

[Baroness Turner of Camden]

My Lords, I, too, support my noble friend’s amendment. The Government have not got their act together on this. We are told that these rights are being taken out of scope because there are other means of dealing with them. Well, the other means of dealing with them, of course, are via the arbitration system, but it is not very long ago since we debated in this House a set of proposals emanating from another wing of government, the Business Secretary, which were designed to weaken employment law on arbitration.

It was proposed that in future a dismissed employee should have to pay a fee before getting a case to an arbitration tribunal. And then, when the employee came before an arbitration tribunal, he would not face the kind of arbitration tribunal that we are used to for dismissal cases, with lay members from both sides of industry sitting on it—oh, no. In future, there would be no relatively friendly environment in which an individual could make a submission, perhaps without being legally represented, but a judge sitting on his own. In other words, it would be a much more legal system, and this legislation makes provision for no legal aid to be provided. That is totally unsatisfactory.

On the one hand, you have a Government saying, “Well, there are other means of dealing with the situation through a non-legal system”; on the other, they are doing everything possible to make it difficult for someone who has been dismissed unfairly, as they feel, to take their case to an arbitration tribunal instead of the law. This is absolutely unsatisfactory and I really do think that the Government have to re-examine their policies in this regard. It is totally unfair to individuals who believe that they are doing a good job of work, who become dismissed and who feel that they have a case, and there is nowhere for them to take it.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, I, too, support the amendment. It must make practical sense to put employment cases back into the scope of legal aid. Worryingly, we face the prospect of rising unemployment. We could see significantly rising unemployment if there were to be a disorderly collapse of the euro. Let us hope that that does not take place, but the interaction of global economic circumstances with the Government’s deliberate policies to reduce employee protection in the interests of liberalising the labour market could result in significant numbers of people becoming casualties. While the Government might argue that the overall economic process will be benign in the interests of this country, it is unquestionable that these circumstances may be malign in the interests of individuals.

In a process of economic adaptation, it is extremely important that, as a society, we take decent and proper care of those who may be the casualties of it. It must be a basic right that people should have legal aid to ensure that they are well advised and that, where necessary, they are represented and their cases can be well made in employment tribunals. What they are personally suffering is a product partly of events and partly of policy, and all of us have a responsibility to ensure that, in times of great economic difficulty, no more people suffer in these processes of change than is truly necessary.

If someone has a genuine right to bring a case against unfair dismissal or some other aspect of their employer’s treatment of them, and they are not supported to make that case, it leads to a sense of injustice. A sense of injustice pervading society in a context of economic stress and social strain cannot be something that the Government want.

If we look at the implications for individuals, again, surely Ministers do not want people to suffer unduly or to incur the costs to the public purse that one can foresee occurring. If someone loses their job, as my noble friend Lord Bach has pointed out, they are liable to become reliant on benefits and could be on the start of a slippery slope that leads to debt, homelessness, the destabilisation of family life, and physical and mental ill health, all of which carry costs to society and to the public purse which surely the Government would wish to avert.

I do not know whether it is the case—it has been suggested to me that it is—that the Government have received advice from those responsible for the conduct of the employment tribunals that it is a mistake to take employment cases out of the scope of legal aid. It would be helpful if the Minister could advise the House whether the Government’s policies have been endorsed or criticised by employment tribunals and whether they have been advised that it would be wiser not to take this course.

For all the reasons that noble Lords have put forward and those that I have suggested, I hope that the Government will accept the amendment. If they are unable to accept it today, I hope they will look carefully again at this area of reduction in legal aid before we come to Report.

17:00

[Lord Pannick]

My Lords, I, too, support the amendment so persuasively moved by the noble Lord, Lord Bach. I do so for three reasons. The first reason concerns the vital importance of employment rights. Few areas of the law are of such day-to-day practical importance to the individual as their rights under employment law. This is surely at least as important as environmental pollution rights, which are within scope under paragraph 37. I do not understand why equality is included in paragraph 38 and so is within scope, covering as it does some employment rights, including the important right not to be discriminated against on prohibited grounds, but not other equally important employment rights such as the right not to be unfairly dismissed.

The second reason—the noble Lord, Lord Bach, mentioned this—is the inevitable inequality in advice and representation between the employer, who almost always has legal advice and representation in the employment tribunal, and the employee. This will undoubtedly result in inequity and in decisions being given that are contrary not only to justice but to the law.

The third reason is the absolute inevitability that the lack of legal advice and representation will result in people wrongly losing their jobs and becoming reliant on state benefits. I hope that the Minister will address this point because the very limited financial savings that we are talking about are completely illusory for this reason.

[The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Wallace of Tankerness)]

My Lords, obviously, as the noble Lord, Lord Bach, said in his introduction, the purpose of the amendment is to make legally aided advice, assistance and representation available for all employment matters.

I have said from the Dispatch Box on one or two occasions in the context of these debates, and I have heard my noble friend Lord McNally say it—no doubt, he has also said it on many occasions when I have not been here—that we are faced with a need to prioritise resources. Clearly when individual issues are properly the subject for debate, it is always possible to make a case for that particular sphere of law or to bring that particular subject within scope. That has been evident from the contributions of noble Lords in this debate. Given the limited pot—it is not a bottomless pocket—my noble friends have had to address how we prioritise. As has been said on numerous occasions, we believed that the more important objective and priorities were those involving life, liberty or homelessness. As a result, we did not feel able to include within scope the employment law issues described by the noble Lord, Lord Bach, and others in the context of the amendment.

It is also important to remember that one of the other things that we have looked at and that has been addressed is where there are other opportunities for funding to be made available. That was touched on particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Bach, when he moved the amendment. Also, employment tribunals were designed, at least initially, to be simple. Their purpose is to enable parties to make or respond to a claim without the need for legal representation. While we recognise that clients find advice in the preparation of their case undoubtedly useful, when these tough choices had to be made we did not consider that this group of clients were generally likely to be in the category of particularly vulnerable people whom we have provided for in other parts of the Bill. We do not accept that the tribunal cannot be accessed or that justice cannot be obtained without legally aided advice.

In fairness, the noble Lord, Lord Bach, quoted from the Government’s consultation paper, in which we outlined other sources of advice such as the free helpline of the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service or the trade unions. I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, that numerous people are not in trade unions, but a considerable number of people are still covered. I seem to recall USDAW announcing earlier this week a very successful action that it had taken on behalf of its members in branches of Woolworths. It had managed to get claims. I am sure the noble Lord would agree that there is still an important and valid role for trade unions.

ACAS also offers a free arbitration service for some disputes concerning unfair dismissal or flexible working. In some cases, an employer may indeed be willing to engage in civil mediation. There is also help available from the pay and work rights helpline and the redundancy helpline, and the tribunal’s public inquiry line can provide factual information although, I accept, not legal advice. Again, in some cases, voluntary organisations or charities may be able to offer assistance.

A number of noble Lords mentioned other issues that are not immediately pertinent to the debate on legal aid. DBIS is still consulting, although it might not have even got to consultation yet. I will certainly make it my business to ensure that—

[Lord Clinton-Davis]

Many of the people we are talking about are inarticulate. In my view, they have to have some sort of professional advice, but advice on the spot that is legally articulated on their behalf. No one else will do it. What does the Minister say to that?

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

There is a distinction between advice that is preparatory to a tribunal and advice in representation. I will check this but at the moment what has been sought is in many respects advice preparatory to tribunal. The number of cases where there is actual representation is very small.

[Lord Clinton-Davis]

Will merely advising people and preparation be enough? Is it not vital that those in this position should be able to put their case to the tribunal? They cannot always do that by themselves, can they? They need professional advice.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, in many cases professional advice by representation is not actually available. I have already said that I do not for a moment deny that the advice that people get in the preparation of a case is valuable—of course it is—but we get back to the issue of looking at the competing priorities for funding from a limited pot. We have said that cases involving life, liberty and homelessness are more important priorities. We are looking, too, at circumstances in which the tribunal is itself intended to be a forum in which people could much more readily access such things informally, without the need for, or recourse to, lawyers. When I was a law student, the idea was still alive and fresh. That difficult choice was made against a background where there are other sources of advice available—I shall not list them again—and in the context of a tribunal that is intended to facilitate those who do not have representation. I do not shy away from it being a difficult choice, but it was made against other competing priorities.

I was about to take the point that the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, and the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, made. We have mentioned other proposals that have been on the airwaves. A different department is responsible, but I will ensure that these concerns are drawn to the attentions of BIS, and will respond to the more specific points when it is possible to draw them to the attention of the department whose responsibility they are. I think that I am right in saying that in some cases the consultation has not been completed.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

I put another question to the Minister, although I am very grateful for his answer to that one. He himself suggested that we are no longer in a golden age, if ever we were, in which tribunals were easily accessible and user friendly. Will he say whether the department has received representations and advice from the employment tribunals on this matter and, if so, what it was? Did those tribunals endorse the removal of employment cases from the scope of legal aid?

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I think that I asked whether someone could come to my aid and give an answer to that question. Perhaps if I talk slowly, that may be possible. Failing which, I may be able to intervene on the noble Lord, Lord Bach, if he responds to this amendment, or I will have to resort to writing to the noble Lord. Frankly, I do not know the answer, but I shall try to find it out for him.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

While the Minister awaits advice, will he tell us about the processes that led to the drafting of the impact statement? A number of us have argued that there will be knock-on consequences for the public purse to the budgets of other departments and the wider economy from taking these cases out of scope. What examination have the Government made of the cost implications elsewhere for their own policies, which the Minister keeps telling us he is applying only under duress, to save money on the legal aid budget itself? The justification offered by Ministers for this is that it is essential to contribute to the reduction of the deficit, and this is how they are going to contribute to the reduction of the deficit. Many of us simply do not believe that the net effect of these policies will be to reduce the deficit—it will be to increase it. What calculations have the Government made about that?

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

As the noble Lord acknowledged, the question goes wider than this particular case. I remember dealing with or at least considering the matter in relation to an earlier amendment last week. While it is often said, I do not think that any substantive evidence has been given that the cost to the public purse will be greater as a result of these policies. Certainly, if part of the purpose is to ensure that the deficit was addressed, it would not make sense to rob Peter to pay Paul, or whichever way round it is. The Government’s view is that in the totality there is benefit and that this will make a significant contribution to the reduction of the deficit. I apologise to the noble Lord, but despite the extended debate I still do not have the answer to his question.

17:15

[Lord Newton of Braintree]

My Lords, since this seems to be a harry-the-Minister moment and I need to make up for yesterday, can I put a couple of questions to my noble and learned friend that I would like him to think about while he is waiting? First, in my considerable experience of tribunals generally, employment tribunals have always really thought that they should be courts. They behaved much more like courts than any other form of tribunal. Indeed, the Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council was so called because the employment tribunals insisted that they were not administrative justice and wanted “tribunals” in the title, reflecting their feeling of difference. Perhaps he could comment on that.

Secondly, and linking with this legal aid point, I picked up on the words of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. I take the point about priorities, and I am not going to say that the other things which he mentioned are of lower priority than this. I had a constituency case, years ago, where somebody was up against one of the big banks, with QCs all over the place, so to me the question is: is it fair, just and right that people should be left without advice and assistance when they are up against that sort of might? I am not sure that the answer is yes.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, the lesson of this is to get an answer quickly so that you do not get other questions accumulating. I know that my noble friend has considerable experience from his time in dealing with tribunals. I cannot remember what his exact role was, but I know that he was very much involved and I remember meeting him when he had that role and I was in another Parliament. As I indicated, over the years it has perhaps become much more formalised but we should not lose sight of the fact that the intent of the tribunals system generally, no matter what they might want to call it, is to have a forum in which people can much more readily come and put their case forward than one with all the formality of the court. Indeed, as I indicated, that was part of the thinking as to why we are dealing with the tribunal system. Perhaps the necessity of it is, let us say, that there was a less compelling argument as to why these cases should therefore be brought within scope than would otherwise be the case.

[Baroness Turner of Camden]

My Lords, one of the points that I made was that the Government were intending to change the nature of the tribunals, by removing the lay people who sit on unfair dismissal cases and replacing them by a judge sitting alone. In other words, they are giving a much more legal feeling to the person who appears before them than when there were laypeople on tribunals. I am not a lawyer, but I have a lot of experience of tribunals. I sat for many years as a member of the arbitration commission, and so on, so I know quite a lot about the way in which laypeople operate on tribunals. It is certainly a much more friendly arrangement for an individual appearing before such a tribunal than if he or she appears before a judge sitting alone. That changes the nature of the tribunal and of the apparatus. I wanted to raise that with the Minister.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I accept that there is obviously a distinction between a tribunal and a more formal court setting. It was in the context of those proposals, which are not before us in legislation, that I indicated I would respond in more detail. Likewise, I will respond to the noble Lord, Lord Howarth. He asked a perfectly straightforward and fair question and I very much regret that I cannot give him an answer, but I will certainly do so and ensure that that response is circulated to other Members who have participated.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

Would the Minister, between now and Report, consider the experience of someone such as myself, who was removed from employment because I wished to join the appropriate trade union? Under the Government’s proposals, preventing employees joining trade unions by threatening them will, in addition to the other disadvantages, provide an incentive for unscrupulous employers to try to stop their employees joining trade unions. In my case, it was a major company which recently has gone bust.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, it is always possible to speculate on what might happen in one case or another. To take the noble Baroness’s point, if it were a case where there were efforts to prevent her joining a trade union, that suggests that there was trade union involvement there, and one of the points that I have made is that trade unions have been a source of support over many years. However, it is difficult to look at the circumstances of one case without drawing conclusions that may be inappropriate. I simply observe that there are other forms and sources of advice that could be available in such circumstances, but perhaps not least from a trade union.

I conclude by making it clear that, as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, highlighted, although legal aid has been removed for employment cases, it will be retained for judicial reviews and claims relating to contravention of the Employment Act 2010; discrimination claims are available there. That is consistent with what we had indicated we believed to be an important priority. In those circumstances, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

My Lords, the concept that employment tribunals are a cosy chat between an employee and his boss in front of a very receptive body of people is quite wrong these days. An impression of unfairness is created for the employee who is seeking his rights when he finds perhaps even a QC appearing on behalf of a wealthy employer. I have appeared many times for employers, sometimes for employees and sometimes on my own behalf.

The excuse, or the reasons, given by the Minister would be far more acceptable if he were to say, “Well, if a union is backing an employee, that is fair enough; they can pay for legal representation”. If he is there on his own, why not just have the boss—the person who did the sacking—in front of the tribunal, not lawyers who in many cases are overpaid when they are dealing with the individual appearing in front of them?

[Lord Pannick]

Before the Minister sits down completely, I have a question arising out of his emphasis on legal aid being available for equality claims. If I have understood this part correctly, paragraph 40 makes clear that legal aid will be available if your claim is in connection with a claim that is within scope. Is it right, therefore, that if I am a dismissed employee and I wish to be eligible for legal aid under the new regime, I should add a discrimination claim to my claim for unfair dismissal and then both of them would be within scope for legal aid? If that is correct, the consequence of excluding general employment claims from scope will simply be to encourage unmeritorious discrimination claims to be brought in order to ensure legal aid for unfair dismissal claims.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

To pick up my noble friend Lord Thomas’s point, I do not think I ever suggested that tribunals were a cosy chat; indeed, I suggested that they were of a somewhat different nature from those of 30 or 40 years ago. However, we should not lose sight of the fact that employment tribunals were designed to be simple and accessible, and that the parties can make a response to a claim without the need for representation. Similarly, an employment tribunal and its chairman must, so far as is practical, ensure that the parties are on an equal footing—that is actually in the rules.

With regard to what the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, says, it is the case that where an employment claim involves both discrimination and non-discrimination matters, we will consider that under the rules that we put in place for connected matters under paragraph 40 of Part 1 of Schedule 1 to the Bill. Those rules will be set out in regulation but, as with any application that is within scope, this will not necessarily bring in these cases automatically. Of course there is still the merits test, albeit that it was a category that was in scope.

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in what I was going to describe as a short debate but is now a medium-sized one. None the less, it has been a passionate debate, with many strong views being expressed. I am grateful, too, to the Minister for answering the sometimes difficult questions that were rightly posed to him. I am particularly glad to thank the noble and learned Lord for acting as a recruiting sergeant for trade unions. Speaking as a member of a trade union, I think that that is a splendid thing to do from the government Front Bench. He is quite right; this is a strong argument for people to join trade unions and get the help that that brings. I know he was making a serious point.

On this occasion, the Government and even the noble and learned Lord are being rather naive about tribunals. It seems that the best justification for what the Government are doing is that because tribunals were designed to be informal, they are therefore informal and it is fine for individuals to represent themselves in person on a regular basis, even when the other side is represented by a QC or a lawyer of any kind. There is nothing that the tribunal can do to make it fair if that is the position. One thing that the state has done to make it fairer is to give individuals who do not have the benefit of trade union membership or any other resource—who do not have the money to pay for lawyers—some legal advice and, in occasional cases, representation at a tribunal, just to equalise the situation a little. I have no doubt that employment tribunal judges and the lay members who sit on tribunals welcome the fact that individuals have had advice or are, on occasions, represented. That makes their task that much easier than it is when there is complete inequality of arms.

I ask the Government why they are making a system that works pretty well at the moment more unfair and more likely to lead to injustice—this is true about a whole range of these issues but we are talking here about employment tribunals—for savings of some £4 million a year. That is if there will be savings, but I will come to that. Many arguments have been put forward against this change from all sides of the Committee this afternoon.

The question that I want to ask is: given that the only possible reason for doing this is to save some public money—we know, of course, that public money must be saved—is the Minister really satisfied that this will save any money at all? The obvious consequence of there being no legal aid is that bad cases will be taken forward by individuals, which will clog up the tribunal and slow it down because the individual will not have had advice or representation. Good cases will not be pursued, which is an attack on justice, or, if they are pursued, will take much longer to be heard because of the large number of bad cases that suddenly find themselves before the tribunal.

[Lord Clinton-Davis]

Take, for example, a person who feels aggrieved and is advised by a lawyer that he has no case or no chance of winning but still feels aggrieved. He therefore pursues his argument to the bitter end. That will take up much more time and money. Am I right?

[Lord Bach]

As usual, my noble friend is right. The point is that many individuals who feel aggrieved, when they are advised—whether by a trade union lawyer or a private lawyer—that they do not have a case, will take that advice and not clog up the system in the manner that I describe. One suspects that there will be no savings at all for the poor employment tribunal itself. It will be caught with hopeless cases that will get nowhere, and claimants with good cases will have to wait a very long time to pursue their cases, if they even pursue them at all. It all seems totally unnecessary when the system that we have in England and Wales works well. I hope that I am not putting it too high when I say that I believe it is the envy of the world as far as employment law is concerned.

I hope that the Government will reconsider this aspect of the Bill between now and Report. I am minded to bring this matter back at Report for decision. However, for the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 82 withdrawn.

17:30

Amendment 82ZA, in substitution for Amendment 83, not moved.

Amendment 82ZB (in substitution for Amendment 84)

Moved by

[Lord Beecham]

82ZB: Schedule 1, page 136, line 34, at end insert—
“( ) all areas of consumer law not otherwise covered in this Schedule”

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, this amendment speaks to the question of consumer law and seeks to restore it to the scope from which it is removed by the Bill. Consumer law covers a multitude of cases but in particular contract law, consumer credit and professional negligence proceedings.

In 17th century terms, I view the noble and learned Lord as a Roundhead—or in view of his provenance, perhaps as a Covenanter—rather than as a Cavalier. However, I am afraid that “cavalier” is the only word that I can apply to the Government’s attitude to access to justice in this and other contexts. That attitude is well illustrated by the airy dismissal of the views of those whom they consulted on whether consumer law should be kept within scope. The Government carried out a consultation exercise and reported:

“Of those respondents who commented on this aspect of the proposals, almost all were opposed to removing these cases from scope”.

Two of the grounds that were raised are relevant for today’s purposes. The response stated that,

“some respondents argued that consumer cases should be retained, in particular professional negligence cases where negligence may have resulted in serious consequences for the client … in some professional negligence cases clients would need expert reports to prove negligence and without legal aid individuals would not be able to afford these”.

The Government concluded:

“Having considered the responses … we confirm our intention to remove consumer and general contract cases from the scope of legal aid. Whilst there are some difficult cases, in particular professional negligence cases, these are still essentially claims concerned primarily with recovering damages, and that means that we consider that their relative importance is generally low, compared, for example, with issues of safety and liberty”.

That is a classic case of an argument reductio ad absurdum. To say that life and liberty are more important than contract law or divorce is axiomatic: it does not advance the argument one whit. The Government also said, as we are so used to hearing in debates on this Bill:

“There are other sources of advice available in relation to consumer matters, for example, from Trading Standards and Consumer Direct”.

Here I ought to declare a non-pecuniary interest as an honorary vice-president of the Trading Standards Institute.

The Government continue:

“There may be alternative non court based solutions in some cases, for example, through regulators and ombudsmen”.

I am rather surprised that they did not add Which? and the helpful columns in the Guardian and weekend newspapers while they were at it. However, that is a considerable oversimplification and an underestimate of the problems which people face. Professional negligence is not merely confined to the recognised professions of solicitors or accountants, for example. Even members of the Bar can be sued for professional negligence, and that has been the case for some time. The conduct of financial advisers, like that of some other professions, might result in considerable loss to people. There is also the builder who botches the job or the architect whose design is defective. All these matters can affect many people and involve them in considerable financial loss.

It is certainly possible to obtain some alternative advice. On Monday, my noble friend Lord Stevenson spoke to an amendment about debt. He is the chairman of an organisation called Consumer Credit Counselling Service, which offers advice in the realm of consumer credit. However, that is not face-to-face advice and anything more complex has to be referred on. My noble friend advised me that that organisation tends to refer matters to the citizens advice bureaux. There is an assumption on the part of the Government that the capacity of organisations such as the citizens advice bureaux, law centres and other bodies is capable of infinite expansion. Apparently, they will be able to undertake the very large volume of cases which will henceforth be denied legal aid or legal advice. However, not only will it be impossible to obtain legal advice from solicitors, but when the very funding of those organisations through government grant for legal advice and assistance will also be cut, they will have a massively increased demand and a diminished resource with which to meet that demand, unless they obtain a soupçon from the £20 million which the noble Lord, Lord McNally, has waved about as being available for some indefinite time to assist in dealing with these problems. That is an extremely unsatisfactory solution to the problem because it is no solution. It is interesting that the Government do not specify in any detail their assessment of the availability of these possible alternatives, simply relying on the fact that there may be alternative non-court based solutions.

The really worrying feature, which again underlines the unsatisfactory nature of the Government’s attitude to this and other cases which we will be considering and have already considered, is summed up in their response to the consultation when they say:

“Although there may be exceptions, in our view the individuals bringing these cases are not likely to be particularly vulnerable compared with, for example, those in the mental health category”,

for which, in fairness, provision will be made. But, again, that is a comparison which has no significance at all, and it is not the comparison that the person who is denied access to justice will make. He or she will rightly make the comparison with somebody who has the means to afford that advice and representation. We are creating a two-tier system of justice, one in which you can buy your way in if you have the means and another in which you will effectively be denied it if you do not have the means. In areas such as this where significant harm can be inflicted on individuals—admittedly, that is not physical harm but pecuniary harm, stress and distress—it does not seem appropriate to deny them the access which the very modest funding that is involved currently allows.

The Government should look at this matter again. Over recent years, Governments of both political persuasions—perhaps one should now say of all three—have championed the cause of consumers. We are talking now about predatory capitalism or responsible capitalism and the rest of it. We ought to be looking at the bottom of the scale of providers, if you will, and at how people can be best enabled to pursue remedies against those who inflict harm on them, because this Bill does not assist in that respect. I beg to move.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

This is another important amendment and I would like to support my noble friend Lord Beecham, who has moved it. If the Government suggest that caveat emptor is a sufficient answer to the case made by my noble friend, they would be wrong. If the Government say that it is simply up to the consumer not to buy shoddy goods or not to avail themselves of shoddy professional services, it will not do—particularly in the provision of services.

Professional self-regulation is not always all that it ought to be. Although we should always guard against the assumption that things are not what they used to be—a view that we are a little bit liable to become attached to in your Lordships' House—none the less, I think it is fair to say that the professional ethic has become somewhat attenuated over recent decades. We see, for example, the advertising of professional services in ways that we did not in the past. We see the marketisation of professional services, arising in part out of contracting out, and the general widespread extension of market values and market practices, which in many cases have led to greater efficiency and greater availability of services. However, they also carry the risk that those who offer these services may become a degree less scrupulous when the ethos is that of the market.

People find themselves beset by parasitic professionals. The purveyors of subprime mortgages may have been the most offensive instance in recent years that one can imagine, but there are many other cases. It will not do to leave the ordinary citizen vulnerable to predatory, grubby and dishonest so-called professionals. The issue of equality of arms that arose in the previous debate on employment law arises here, too, because the ordinary citizen may come up against professionals, or those who represent them, who are highly articulate, able to speak the jargon of a specialised field and can afford expensive advice. It must be an elementary principle that there is access to justice on sufficient equal terms to enable citizens who have been poorly, dishonestly or improperly served by professional advisers to have some remedy.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I have some sympathy in this area. I also have a great deal of sympathy with what has been said on previous amendments, because there is a distinct grouping of those who have the means to cope with their own cases and those who do not. In this particular case, consumer law has been a matter that we have only recently begun to take an interest in—indeed my noble kinsman was the first ever Minister of Consumer Affairs. I remember that I was immediately enthused because I thought that it would make him much more interested in all the goods and facilities that I might be interested in buying. I have to admit that it did not quite work out that way. He was much more interested in the number of ounces and proportions described on the back of a product, and so on.

Nevertheless, on the other point made by the noble Lord who moved the amendment, we have concerns about the organisations that protect the consumer. Which? is obviously an important organisation, as are CABs in other areas also. If their funds are going to be cut in the way proposed, we will have problems. As I said, I have sympathy in these areas. I hope that what has been said will be taken into consideration, because there will be serious consequences in certain cases. In the most serious cases there will be facilities to represent them—or at least I certainly hope so—but people in cases which are not recognised because no legal advice has been available will lose out. As has often been said, that will lead to increased costs to the state.

17:45

[Lord Goldsmith]

My Lords, I want to underline and strongly support one point made by my noble friend Lord Beecham, and referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and that is the impact of these changes on the organisations that are providing just the alternative support that the Minister referred to. The Bill is about taking money away not just from lawyers but from organisations that are supporting people in an important time of need.

I speak with some knowledge of this as I have had a long history in the pro bono movement. I declare an interest as chairman of the Access to Justice Foundation. One of the things that we do is to distribute regrettably small sums of money, because that is all we have, to organisations that support consumers and provide free legal advice and representation. Those small sums are going a long way towards helping people, but I know how much more is needed. I have seen organisations going to the wall, unable to continue because they depend and to some extent scrape by on a little bit of legal aid.

I should very much like to hear from the Minister just how he and the Government believe that the alternative services to which he referred can continue in the light of the cuts that the Bill is making in this field.

[Lord Clinton-Davis]

I am rather frightened that too many people are going to find themselves without any remedy. That is bound to arise in many instances. I hope that the Minister will sympathise with them because having an effective remedy is vital. I am not talking about professional advice but about being able to take something to a tribunal and being heard—and being heard equitably. It is not simply that people of this kind—we are talking about consumers at the moment—ought to feel that when they are treated shoddily their point of view will be heard. I am afraid that that is unlikely to be the case and they will be sort of disfranchised. People who are inarticulate and disfranchised can resort to rather unhelpful remedies.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, the effect of the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, would be to make civil legal services available for consumer matters. There is a degree of familiarity about the pattern of these debates. I do not think that I am speaking out of turn in saying that the previous Administration and the Labour Party went into the last election with an understanding that the legal aid system would have to be reformed. What I find difficult in listening to the debates—and I hope that I am not offending anyone—is the sentiment, “Lord make me chaste, but not just yet”. We must reform legal aid, but when examples are presented people say, “We don’t want to reform that part of it”.

[Lord Bach]

The Minister is making an important point, and he is justified in making it, but it is false. We have set out what we would have done to make savings in the legal aid budget. Our proposals would have applied largely to the criminal law, and particularly to the role of solicitors. Although I am prepared to go into details, the Committee would not be very interested in it at this stage. Our proposals would have saved a considerable amount of money. The Law Society itself has made recommendations on savings. I know that noble Lords from the Liberal Democrat Benches will later suggest a possible source of savings on criminal legal aid as well. There are alternatives out there. The one thing we committed ourselves not to do was to cut social welfare law, because we recognise that, for a relatively small amount of money, it did an incredible amount of good. Our opposition to the Government is based on the fact that they have picked on social welfare law, attempting to decimate it so that it no longer exists. That is a justified criticism that has not yet been answered.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for setting out that position. As he said, we will come to issues of criminal legal aid later today—I hope; I am sure.

This is going over old ground, but it is important. The scale of the deficit reduction that has been required exceeded what many of us thought before we came into government in May 2010. As I said, that has resulted in some difficult decisions. On two occasions, the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, said that it was unfair to make that point with regard to professional negligence cases. He cited the response to the consultation, when we said that those were claims concerned primarily with recovering damages and that we considered that their relative importance was generally low compared, for example, with issues of safety and liberty. He seemed to say that that is so blatantly true that it does not add anything.

If one has limited resources, those are the kind of priority judgments that must be made. In Schedule 1, we have tried to apply those priorities in different circumstances. Again citing the response, he said that people who would be bringing damages claims were not likely in general to be vulnerable compared with detained mental health patients and elderly care home residents, who are unable to present their own case. He agreed that that is clearly the case. If we have to establish priorities, I think he would agree that priority would go to a detained mental health patient or an elderly care home resident.

If there was an unlimited fund of resources, the noble Lord’s point would have far more force, but given that there is not, given that decisions have had to be made as to what comes within scope and what does not, I think the balance that we have sought to strike of giving precedence to issues of life, liberty and homelessness is proper.

It is for that reason that we did not include consumer claims within the scope. The noble Lord raised the question of professional negligence cases. It is fair to say that, when we come to Part 2, conditional fee agreements may be available for cases involving damages. That makes the provision of legal aid in such cases less likely to be justified. As has already been well rehearsed, other sources of advice are available on consumer matters. There are trading standards officers, Consumer Direct and alternative non-court based solutions through regulators or ombudsmen—such as the Financial Ombudsman Service for people with complaints about financial services or Otelo for complaints relating to telecommunications.

The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, talked about the cut in CABs’ funding. Of course, there will be an impact on CABs’ funding from legal aid, although it is estimated that that is only 15 per cent of CABs’ funding. At the risk of saying this yet again, the Chamber will be well aware that the Government announced a further £20 million funding in June last year for not-for-profit advice agencies and are considering funding for future years. Last February, £27 million was announced for continued funding administered by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills for this financial year to maintain the face-to-face debt advice programme in citizen's advice bureaux and other independent advice agencies across England and Wales.

To pick up the important point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, additional funding has been announced for not-for-profit advice agencies, and the Government are considering funding for those organisations for future years. As parallels the previous debate, we will retain legal aid for consumer matters where they concern an alleged contravention of the Equality Act 2010. Many cases involving the Equality Act will be within scope.

At the end of the day, it boils down to the fact that, with finite resources, priorities have to be made. We have had one of, if not the most, generously funded legal aid schemes in the world. Even after the changes are implemented, should the House pass the Bill, it will still be a very generously funded legal aid system. Regrettably, some choices are very difficult, but I hope that the priorities we have identified stand up to scrutiny. It is more than axiomatic that when you have limited funds, life, liberty and dealing with homelessness and discrimination are important and that people who are less able to articulate their case or defend themselves should have priority. On that basis, I urge the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friends Lord Howarth and Lord Clinton-Davis, my noble and learned friend Lord Goldsmith, and the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, for their contributions. I am also grateful to my noble friend Lord Bach for his intervention, although if the Government were proposing only to decimate legal aid—to take 10 per cent off—I would almost be prepared to accept that. I think he was using the phrase in the vernacular sense rather than the literal sense, because we face a much bigger reduction in legal aid and advice on funding than the 10 per cent actually means.

To refer back to my noble friend Lord Howarth's contribution in an earlier debate, he was asking about the knock-on costs of some of the changes. It may interest him to know that I have tabled a Question for Written Answer inviting the Government to say what estimates they have made of the cost to other government departments and whether those departments have accepted them or made any representations about them.

The noble and learned Lord again advances the mantra about life and liberty, and of course they are most important. I am tempted to say that the Government believe in life and liberty but not in the pursuit of remedies, to paraphrase. More importantly, we are seeing the virtual death of equality before the law. There are areas where inequality will be deepened for a modest saving, at the very best. That is a socially divisive measure. It runs contrary to the big society concept and some of the words that we are hearing. The practical effect will be the denial of justice to far too many people. At this stage, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment, but it is a matter to which we may well return.

Amendment 82ZB withdrawn.

Amendment 82ZC not moved.

Amendment 82ZD (in substitution for Amendment 86)

Moved by

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

82ZD: Schedule 1, page 136, line 34, at end insert—
“Appeals where court or tribunal certifies complex point etc.(1) Civil legal services provided in relation to an appeal to the Upper Tribunal, the Senior Courts or the Supreme Court where the relevant court or tribunal certifies that—
(a) the appeal raises a complex issue of law or an issue of fact of exceptional complexity (in which case the certificate must identify the issue),(b) the matter is one of significant wider public interest (in which case the certificate must identify that interest), or(c) there is some other compelling reason why the proper conduct of the appeal requires the provision of civil legal services (in which case the certificate must set out the reason).(2) Rules of procedure applicable to the relevant court or tribunal may make provision about certificates under this paragraph.”

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

My Lords, the amendment deals with appeals where a court or tribunal certifies a complex point of law. The Judges’ Council, in response to the original consultation document, stressed the importance of continued funding for competent lawyers in meritorious cases. The problem is to identify which are the meritorious cases. Its response stated:

“Appeals before the Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court have to get through a demanding permission filter, frequently involve issues of difficulty and importance and may lead to the laying down of binding principles of broad application—a fortiori in the case of ‘second’ appeals to the Court of Appeal, which are subject to even stricter criteria requiring the appeal to raise an important point of principle or practice or that there is some other compelling reason why the appeal should be heard. References to the European Court of Justice relate to a difficult area of law and are made only where the answer is unclear. In appeals and references of this nature, the court ought to be given all possible assistance through professional advocacy. There should be no further cut-back in the availability of legal aid for such cases. The possibility of applying under the funding scheme for excluded cases is not a satisfactory answer, both because the scheme will be very limited in scope and because the very process of applying under the scheme is bound to be complicated and dissuasive”.

Appeals are not only about the individual case before the court or tribunal; they often change the law, and make new law and law that is binding on later cases. There is a powerful public interest that both sides of the case are properly argued. It is the court or tribunal itself that is best placed to decide whether to trigger the operation of an appeal by issuing a certificate. The concept of exceptional funding under Clause 9 is excessively narrow in its scope, and I will be returning to that later. This amendment ensures that such cases remain, where appropriate, within the scope of legal aid and would retain the possibility of legal aid when the appeal is on a matter of significant wider public interest or there is some other compelling reason why legal services are required. I beg to move.

18:00

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

My Lords, I too support the amendment. When my noble and learned friend responds to this debate, it would be helpful if he would explain the relationship between the types of issues covered in the amendment and Clause 9. If he and the Government believe that there is nothing in the amendment that is not in fact or in law covered by Clause 9, it would be helpful if he would say so. I respectfully suggest that it would be better for these very important decisions to be made by judges and that we should avoid a potentially unnecessary layer of satellite litigation through judicial review of decisions of the director of civil legal aid. I suggest to my noble and learned friend that it is better that judges rather than an official determine whether there should be legal aid.

I remind my noble and learned friend that the paradigm of the English claimant is the man on the Clapham omnibus, who may be coming to court with a very ordinary dispute. My noble and learned friend will recall, as a distinguished Scots lawyer, that one of the most important cases ever decided in the civil law in the United Kingdom related to a snail in a Scottish ginger beer bottle. Another of the most important cases in the common law arose from a carbolic smoke ball. One of the most important, if not the most important, cases in administrative law arose from the administrative arrangements for a cinema—a picture house—in Wednesbury in the Midlands. More recently, an extremely important case that led to a change in policy arose from a disabled person seeking guidance on her end-of-life care. That last one might have passed the test which I understand to be applied by Clause 9, but I believe that all four of those cases should in appropriate, means-tested circumstances be the recipients of legal aid and that the means test should be applied rather lightly if the outcome of the case has great importance in setting new precedent and our understanding of the law. In brief, I suggest to my noble and learned friend that the court is better placed than the director of civil legal aid to determine the importance of an issue in the panoply of precedent that the courts set.

[Lord Pannick]

My Lords, I, too, support the amendment for all the reasons set out by the noble Lords, Lord Thomas of Gresford and Lord Carlile of Berriew. I add one further factor. The criteria set out in this amendment are so tightly defined that it is highly probable that in any case falling within those criteria, where one party is not legally represented, the tribunal or the court—particularly the Appeal Court—would consider it wholly inappropriate to determine the issue before it without requesting the Attorney-General to appoint what used to be known as an amicus curiae, now friend of the court, at public expense. It is much more desirable, with that public expense, for the individual to be represented rather than to have his or her case presented through a friend of the court. Again, the saving is entirely illusory.

[Baroness Mallalieu]

I also support the amendment. Who do the Government propose should prepare and conduct appeals that fall into the category of either complexity or public importance in the absence of legal aid, but which will not make the cut under Clause 9 exceptional?

Unless damages are involved, conditional fee agreements will not begin to kick in. If there are qualified solicitors or barristers who have the time, the inclination and the financial ability to take on pro bono cases of complexity, I suspect that they are pretty thin on the ground and, following on from what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, said in the previous debate, that they are likely to be even more scarce after the cuts kick in. I am afraid that the answer will be: either pay or do it yourself. Having been at the Bar for 40 years, I would not wish to prepare my own appeal, and certainly not if it was complex.

First, I would have to discover the relevant forms—whatever they are—which must be completed and filed with strict time limits. It may be necessary to obtain transcripts of the earlier proceedings, but from where, how and who will pay for them? Bundles of exhibits correctly paginated and in sufficient numbers would have to be prepared and lodged with the court and the other side. Written skeleton arguments would have to be prepared and exchanged, and a list of authorities—the reports of the earlier cases that will be relied on—will have to be compiled and given to the court and the other side as well.

How on earth is a lay man supposed to do all that without proper advice and legal assistance, let alone argue a legal case of complexity in court? An “exceptional case” must surely include consideration of the interests of justice. Proposed new sub-paragraph (1)(c) in the amendment, which permits legal services where the court or the tribunal certifies that there is some,

“compelling reason why the proper conduct of the appeal requires the provision of civil legal”,

aid, brings in just that factor that is currently missing.

If the amendment or at the very least something like it does not go into the ultimate legislation, I fear that the result will be: if you cannot afford to pay, you cannot appeal. That undermines one of our essential constitutional principles of equality before the law, which I cannot believe the noble and learned Lord or the Government wish.

[Lord Clinton-Davis]

I have learned so much today. I did not know that the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, had been at the Bar for 40 years. I always thought she was 40.

The amendment is self-evidently sensible. I hope that the Government will realise that it is important for the public that the points made here are expressed. We are talking about,

“a complex issue of law … wider public interest … some other compelling reason why the proper conduct of the appeal requires the provision of civil legal services”.

I hope that the Minister will say that on reflection the amendment will be embodied in the provisions that the Government are prepared to make on Report or later. I thank the noble Lord for raising these important issues, which are critical not only for lawyers but for the public.

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, I will be very brief. We on the Front Bench support the amendment unreservedly. I will make three points. Given that these cases address complex or novel points of law, they are clearly beyond the ability of the average litigant in person—and, if she is to be believed, even of my noble friend Lady Mallalieu, although I am not sure about that.

Secondly, such cases are the lifeblood of our legal system. They give it its unique character and ensure that it is kept in line with evolving social mores and values, and with extranational jurisprudential developments. They are a crucial part of our legal system. Thirdly, a failure to guarantee that such cases can be heard would be a complete failure of any regime purporting to protect the needs of the average litigant.

Perhaps I may repeat the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile. Are these cases covered by the exceptional cases regime in Clause 9? If they are, under the terms of the amendment, I would be very grateful if the noble and learned Lord would say that on the record. I will go no further than to thank the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, for the very thoughtfully crafted amendment that we commend to the House.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford for tabling the amendment. It would bring into scope any appeal to the Upper Tribunal and appellate courts where a relevant court or tribunal has certified, for example, that the case raises a complex issue of law or is a matter of significant wider public interest. It is important to note that this would broaden the existing scope of civil legal aid, as well as bring into scope a range of cases that we intend no longer to fund. The amendment extends the legal aid scheme beyond its existing bounds by, for example, allowing legal aid—albeit subject to the relevant court certifying one of the matters listed in the amendment—for advocacy in the Upper Tribunal on welfare benefit matters, or on business cases before the Supreme Court.

Further, Clause 9 ensures that in any individual case where it would be a breach of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights to withhold legal aid, funding will be provided. Both my noble friend Lord Carlile and the noble Lord, Lord Bach, asked whether the amendment merely replicated what was in Clause 9. I will put on the record that it does not, in specific respects that I will explain later. It is the case, however, that in deciding whether the withholding of legal aid would breach Article 6, the director of legal aid casework must consider the complexity of the issues and the importance of the matter at stake. This addresses the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu. The ability of the applicant to present their own case is a relevant factor, along with other relevant circumstances. Therefore, in cases where Article 6 is engaged, the exceptional funding scheme we have proposed will include taking into consideration the complexity of each individual case considered under Clause 9.

18:15

As my noble friend Lord Carlile indicated, each case will depend on its own facts and circumstances. I remember my first ever tort lecture, when the lecturer suggested that the snail in the ginger beer bottle was perhaps one of the cleaner things in a Paisley café in 1929. As my noble and learned friend Lord Fraser of Carmyllie has just reminded me, it was never proved whether the snail ever existed. Cases of Wednesbury judicial review, as we discussed on numerous occasions today, fall within Schedule 1.

One area of distinction is that the amendment also seeks to bring into scope any case which is certified to be of “significant wider public interest”. Under the current legal aid scheme there is a rule that allows any excluded case—other than a business case—to be brought back into scope if it is of significant wider public interest. It is not our intention to include such a rule in the future scheme created by the Bill. This is because we do not consider that the presence of this factor should constitute an automatic entitlement to publicly funded legal services, particularly where an area of law has been excluded because it is considered insufficiently important to merit public funding, because there are alternative sources of funding or because the procedure is simple enough that litigants can present their case without assistance.

Nevertheless, I reassure the Committee that funding for tribunals and appeals is not being withdrawn altogether. We have focused our limited resources on the highest priority cases in the Upper Tribunal and appellate courts, such as those concerning detained mental patients, special educational needs appeals, and discrimination. Where a case is in scope, it is our intention that the public interest will continue to be a relevant feature in the merits criteria created under Clause 10, thus allowing this to be taken into account in the funding decision.

I will combine that with my comments about the extent of Clause 9, which we will shortly debate. I have indicated that it does not cover everything, but clearly there is an overlap where the director of legal aid casework will be able to consider issues such as the complexity of a case and other factors. With that assurance, I hope that my noble friend will withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

My Lords, I do not intend to go into the complexities of proof in a Scottish court; it has always seemed something of a haar to me. I am grateful to all noble Lords who spoke in the debate. I will stress two points from the speeches that we heard. My noble friend Lord Carlile pointed out that under Clause 9 it is the director of legal aid who will determine whether, in exceptional cases, legal aid should be granted. I cannot imagine any director who would have in his mind the full scope of the issues that can arise in appeals against decisions from tribunals and courts. I would have thought that the Government would have welcomed, as a safeguard, the fact that civil legal services will not be provided unless there is a certificate expressly stating why legal aid should be granted in the case. That will be an advantage, rather than leaving it to the director of legal aid, whose decision may well be challenged by way of judicial review. Surely satellite litigation is the one thing that we want to avoid when we pass the Bill.

The other point that I will stress follows from what was said by the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, who outlined all the steps that must be taken in every appeal: the complicated preparation of schedules, skeleton arguments and documents that some of us are familiar with. As she said, it would be quite impossible for any individual to conduct an appeal, given all the background work that has to be done. As the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said, the amendment is tightly drawn. I am disappointed with the response of my noble and learned friend. I hope that I will be able to pursue the matter with him afterwards and come back to it at a later stage. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 82ZD, in substitution for Amendment 86, withdrawn.

Amendments 82A to 82D not moved.

Amendments 83 to 86 had been retabled as Amendments 82ZA to 82ZD.

Amendments 87 to 89 not moved.

Amendment 90

Moved by

[Lord Beecham]

90: Schedule 1, page 137, line 38, leave out paragraph 16

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, like the Minister, I learnt tort. In my case, it was at the feet of no less a person than the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hoffmann, and I remember those days with great affection, but in the course of my career I have also been involved in criminal injuries compensation cases, and I shall refer later to some of the problems that they throw up.

Once again, the Government have consulted about these matters, and once again the response from those consulted has been almost wholly negative. Nevertheless the Government, on the grounds that we are now very familiar with, are clearly going ahead with their determination to withdraw any form of legal support in the way of advice—representation was not covered—from the scheme.

This scheme is so simple that it takes only 55 pages to set it out in the statutory instrument and a mere 113 pages in the guide to the scheme that is available to potential claimants. It is fair to say that the guide also includes the tariff that for some time now has been substituted for what was a wider area of discretion for tribunals to award.

Before I come on to the issues that can confront claimants, one of the points that the Government have made is that support is available from other sources, including the compensation authority itself and Victim Support. However, Victim Support does not provide legal advice, and it is very questionable whether a telephone, or even online, conversation with the authority can help all claimants, or indeed perhaps the majority of them, because there are issues. It is not simply a case of having to establish that a criminal injury has been sustained; there are issues that can be taken into account by the tribunal in determining whether to grant an award or to reduce an award that would otherwise be available.

A number of factors come into play, such as the conduct on the occasion of the claimant, a procedural delay in reporting the matter, or a failure to co-operate with those inquiring into the matter. These might be for inadequate reasons—sloth, neglect or reluctance—but they might arise from concerns about whether bringing a claim might provoke an assailant, for example, or because the situation has created such stress that the person may not feel able to pursue matters. There are other matters too; a criminal record might disqualify or allow an abatement of an award that would otherwise have been made. Those matters—the matter of conduct, for example—are matters on which applicants might very well need advice and assistance. It will not be legal aid advice or assistance if this clause stands.

I clearly recall representing a client where conduct was an issue. He had to be advised about that, and as I was representing him I had to put the case about those matters. Equally, I had to deal with someone with a criminal record. It was not particularly relevant. He had not been convicted of a violent crime, so it was not particularly germane to whether he should have a deduction or, at any rate, a significant deduction. One of my most vivid recollections is of a very sad case of a lorry driver who was driving his lorry and was the victim of a road accident in which the driver of a sports car rammed into him head on and went underneath the cab of this client’s vehicle. He sustained some physical injury but, much worse, he sustained severe post-traumatic stress.

This was a complex case in medical terms and in terms of the quantum that the client might be seeking—at that point, there was no tariff. The case took a considerable time, and we were able to secure an interim payment for him. Tragically, this man took his own life as a result of the post-traumatic stress. In those circumstances, his widow had a sustainable claim, and the case went on. I am not saying that that was a typical case, but it is an example, perhaps a most acute example, of a case where legal advice and assistance was indispensable to the client. There will be others of that kind for which such advice will not be available in future. That cannot be right. I simply add this to the list of cases for which the amount that it would cost to restore or retain legal aid and advice to scope would be relatively modest, and accordingly I beg to move.

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

I was a member of the Criminal Injury Compensation Board for seven or eight years and resigned when the noble Lord, Lord Howard, introduced his tariff scheme in 1993. Reverting to the Scottish theme, I recall sitting in Glasgow on one occasion with two very senior Scottish QCs next to me. I was the junior member. We had an applicant in front of us who addressed us in a language that I did not understand. At that time, I had been married to my late wife for some 30 years. She was from West Lothian, so I was pretty well attuned to the Scottish dialect of the central belt. However, I noticed that my learned friends on either side were nodding as though they understood, so I said to the chairman, “What’s he saying?”, and the chairman replied out of the side of his mouth, “I haven’t a clue”, so I said to the applicant, “Would you mind speaking more slowly please?”. He looked at me and said, “Eh?”. He could not understand me, so there was a certain confusion. I there realised the importance of having an advocate who could explain the case clearly to the tribunal. On the other hand, the members of the Criminal Injury Compensation Board were, I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, will acknowledge, a pretty experienced bunch of people, and we handled most claims without representation and without any difficulty, so if there are priorities to be chosen here, this would not be one of mine.

[Lord Pannick]

My Lords, there are undoubtedly few examples of claims under the scheme that raise complex legal issues that require legal advice, but there are some, and it is unfortunate that the Bill should seek to exclude legal advice and representation in cases where such complex legal issues arise. It is particularly unfortunate that paragraph 16 of Part 2 should exclude claims under the criminal injuries compensation scheme because that conflicts with one of the most welcome and important developments in criminal law in recent decades: the recognition of the rights and interests of victims of serious crime. The criminal injuries compensation scheme is one of the earliest statutory—or non-statutory, in its case—recognitions of the rights and interests of victims. I can think of nothing more likely to undermine the real interests of victims where complex matters are raised than denying them any opportunity of legal aid and advice through the legal aid scheme.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords, I was rather impressed by the case that was put to the House by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, and at the same time I heard what my noble friend Lord Thomas said from his direct experience of these types of tribunal. In summing up this debate, perhaps my noble friend might contemplate a compromise where legal advice would at least be available even if legal representation is not. That would significantly alleviate the sort of case that the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, told us about, and would see justice done.

18:30

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, I have listened carefully to the representations and arguments put forward. Amendment 90 would delete paragraph 16 of Part 2 of Schedule 1:

“Civil legal services provided in relation to compensation under the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme”.

I think I am right in saying that the architecture does not apply right across the board for criminal injuries, but only in cases that are brought within scope under Part 1.

I note what the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, said about the potential complexity of applying and the advice given to possible applicants, although I think it is fair to say that applications can be made online and by telephone, and the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority itself provides help and guidance.

I rather suspect that the numbers involved are small, although I could not indicate just how many, but I have listened, I believe that some important points have been made, and I want to reflect on this—without any commitment. On that basis, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Beecham]

I am extremely grateful for—not to say surprised and delighted by—the noble and learned Lord’s generous offer, and I hope that we can take matters forward in the spirit that the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, referred to. I withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 90 withdrawn.

Amendments 90ZZA and 90ZZB not moved.

Amendment 90ZA

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

90ZA: Schedule 1, page 139, line 1, at beginning insert “Advocacy in”

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, the government amendments in this group in the name of my noble friend Lord McNally are designed to give better effect to the stated policy intention.

Under the proposals that we are putting forward, advocacy should be available for preliminary and incidental proceedings only where those proceedings take place in the same forum or venue as the proceedings that are in scope. We do not believe that this is sufficiently clear in the Bill as currently drafted. Therefore, Amendment 90D deletes from paragraph 5 of Part 4 of Schedule 1 the reference to Part 3, and Amendment 90E introduces a new sub-paragraph that clearly sets out that advocacy will be available in preliminary or incidental proceedings in the same venue as those set out in Part 3.

Amendment 90F is consequential to the amendments that I have just described. Amendment 90G inserts a new sub-paragraph to provide a power that allows regulations to make provision on when one set of proceedings is related to another. Amendment 90C makes it clear that advocacy for an in-scope area will be available in relation to bail proceedings and enforcement proceedings in any venue. Amendment 90B has been tabled to ensure that correct references are made in paragraph 24 in relation to the rest of Part 3. More technically, Amendment 90ZA corrects a slip in the original drafting and makes the wording of paragraph 10 of Part 3 of Schedule 1, which is about advocacy for the Mental Health Review Tribunal for Wales, consistent with the wording of the rest of Part 3 of Schedule 1. I beg to move.

[Lord Bach]

I thank the noble and learned Lord for moving these amendments so succinctly and clearly. This side of the House has no objection to them at all.

Amendment 90ZA agreed.

Amendment 90A not moved.

Amendments 90B to 90G

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

90B: Schedule 1, page 140, line 11, leave out “the preceding paragraphs” and insert “any other paragraph”

90C: Schedule 1, page 140, line 12, at end insert—
“25 Advocacy in bail proceedings before any court which are related to proceedings within any other paragraph of this Part of this Schedule.
26 Advocacy in proceedings before any person for the enforcement of a decision in proceedings within any other paragraph of this Part of this Schedule.”

90D: Schedule 1, page 140, line 32, leave out “2 or 3” and insert “or 2”

90E: Schedule 1, page 140, line 41, at end insert—
“( ) Where a paragraph of Part 3 of this Schedule describes advocacy provided in relation to particular proceedings in or before a court, tribunal or other person, the description is to be treated as including services provided in relation to preliminary or incidental proceedings in or before the same court, tribunal or other person.”

90F: Schedule 1, page 140, line 43, leave out “sub-paragraph (1)” and insert “this paragraph”

90G: Schedule 1, page 141, line 3, at end insert—
“( ) when proceedings are related to other proceedings.”

Amendments 90B to 90G agreed.

Schedule 1, as amended, agreed.

Clause 9 : Exceptional cases

Amendment 91

Moved by

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

91: Clause 9, page 6, line 16, after “breach” insert “, or
(c) that it is in the interests of justice generally”

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

My Lords, I rise with a sense of relief, now we have got through Schedule 1.

The amendments grouped with my Amendment 91 seek to clarify or perhaps extend the circumstances in which an exceptional case determination can be made under Clause 9(3). At the moment, as drafted, that subsection says that an exceptional case determination is one that,

“is necessary to make the services available”

because of,

“a breach of … the individual’s Convention rights … or … rights of the individual to the provision of legal services that are enforceable EU rights, or … that it is appropriate to do so, in the particular circumstances of the case, having regard to any risk that failure to do so would be such a breach”.

In other words, an exceptional case has to fall within a breach of the individual’s convention rights for funding to be granted at all. That is far too narrow a situation.

Amendment 91 is a perfectly simple amendment that says that exceptional funding should be available when,

“it is in the interests of justice generally”.

The amendments that are grouped with mine, in the name of the noble Lords, Lord Bach and Lord Beecham, rather extend that definition, but the idea is simple enough. We believe that Clause 9 does not go far enough to address the gap in funding for parties that need representation. It is not sufficient to counter the adverse effects of litigants being forced to pursue litigation in person in areas of civil and family law where legal representation is important for the proper conduct of the case. I have already referred to what the Judges’ Council had to say on this issue in addressing a previous amendment.

The exclusion of private family law from legal aid is likely to make the operation of this clause particularly problematic. There is a long line of Strasbourg cases to the effect that at least some family cases not involving domestic violence require legal aid to be available. Serious injustice would be caused if parties to these emotionally charged cases were forced to act in person. In practice, even under the clause as drafted, it is likely that a large number of cases would have to be treated as exceptional because of the risk of a breach of the right to a fair hearing under Article 6 of the European convention.

However, the problem does not end there. Article 6 does not apply in cases of an administrative character. Many cases of that kind, which reach the courts from tribunals or decision-making officials, involve important issues about education, privacy or social care, for example. Unfairness can have devastating consequences for individuals. Not surprisingly, the English courts have long accepted that domestic law in these cases imposes the same standards of fairness as Article 6. However, Clause 9 would not permit exceptional funding to be granted to avoid a miscarriage of justice in a case of this sort. It is very interesting that the coalition Government, in which there is a certain element of the Conservative Party, are limiting exceptional funding to a breach of convention rights and not to the English common law that would show that an injustice might follow.

This amendment ensures that an exceptional case determination may be made where it is appropriate in the interests of justice generally, not merely in cases where there would otherwise be a breach or a risk of a breach of the European convention. I beg to move.

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, this is an important group and anything I say of course comes with the proviso that we too support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford. We have put down an amendment proposed by the Law Centres Federation, which many noble Lords will know is responsible in many ways for the law centres dotted around England and Wales. I think that it is generally agreed by noble Lords and those outside this Committee that the federation does a fantastic job on very small resources. It gives poor people and others a chance to have access to justice to sort out their legal problems. That is at the very heart of Part 1 and I am privileged to put forward this amendment, which the Law Centres Federation originally proposed.

Exceptional funding is a proposed essential safeguard in a legal scheme that obviously seeks to exclude whole areas of law from cover. It is a mechanism by which individuals who suffer particular injustices as a result of these broad exclusions that we have been debating can in exceptional circumstances obtain legal aid to help them assert their rights. We believe that it is wrong to remove whole areas of law from scope rather than consider individual cases, as no account is taken of the importance of the case to the individual or their ability to address their legal problems by other means.

Clients with physical or mental health difficulties or with low levels of education may be wholly unable to resolve their problems without legal-aided support. They will also be seriously disadvantaged when facing, as we have been debating in the past few minutes, unusually complex areas of law or well funded opponents employing significant expert legal resources. To address this injustice, the Government rely on their proposed exceptional funding provision in Clause 9.

However, Clause 9 as drafted is too narrow, as the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, has persuasively argued, and is problematic in a number of ways. First, as I have said, the clause is too narrow and depends on proving human rights or European law concepts. These highly complex areas of law are still meant as the only gateway to legal aid for individuals who, by definition, are often not in a position to deal with their underlying legal problems.

Secondly, Clause 9 excludes any prospect of legal aid for the initial advice and assistance stage, which is often the stage at which most help can be provided to the client to resolve matters and has the inestimable advantage of avoiding more costly litigation. I ask the noble and learned Lord when he replies to consider whether the proposition that I have just put as regards the initial advice and assistance stage is out of scope.

The current draft clause states that to acquire exceptional funding a client would have to prove that refusal of legal aid would be in breach of “the individual’s convention rights” or their rights,

“to the provision of legal services”,

under European Union law or,

“that it is appropriate to do so, in the particular circumstances of the case, having regard to any risk that failure to do so would be such a breach”.

However, in determining which areas of law to leave in scope and which to exclude, the Government have used some more approachable tests: namely, is the client likely to be particularly vulnerable; is advice and representation available from other sources; is the area of law complex; and, finally, can the client deal with matters or represent themselves? Given those considerations, surely it is appropriate to have an exceptional funding provision also based on these tests. That is the basis of the amendment to which I am speaking at the moment.

18:45

In addition, and recognising that preparing an exceptional funding application is likely to require the assistance of an adviser, especially if arguments on human rights and European law need to be formulated, we propose a new subsection (7) to be inserted in Clause 9. This broader provision would enable decision-makers to award exceptional funding in circumstances where, despite the tests used to underpin the excluded areas of law, the client’s vulnerability or health is such that they cannot represent themselves and have been unable to find alternative sources of advice and assistance. That amendment would also provide a safety net for children and young people under the age of 18. It would enable provision of legal aid funding where, despite the underlying area of law being excluded, it is in the interests of justice. This is where we come back to the noble Lord’s amendment for legal aid to be provided, whether at the request of the courts or on the client’s application. We believe that without such amendments children and vulnerable adults will not only have great difficulty in accessing advice and asserting their rights in excluded areas of law, but will also be effectively excluded from the safety net of the exceptional funding scheme. It is on that basis that I put forward the amendments in this way.

Amendment 92, which is also in our names, introduces a requirement for the director of legal aid to consult the chief coroner when making determinations about inquests. The Committee will be well aware that the chief coroner is intended to provide leadership within the coronial system. It has been a matter of great debate in this House. The Government are to be congratulated on keeping the position of chief coroner. Through that role, the chief coroner will be in a unique position to understand the nature of inquests considered on a national level and how a particular case perhaps fits in and, more fundamentally, whether there may be a wider public interest in respect of the individual and the inquest itself.

We argue that it appears appropriate to design the legal aid system in respect of inquests with this provision in place. Will the Minister confirm whether the dialogue with the judicial office in respect of the chief coroner post has progressed to any action in establishing the post, and when can we expect to have an announcement of a new chief coroner being appointed? The Minister need not give the answers to these questions now. If he would write to me on that, I should be equally grateful. What other steps are being taken by the ministry to establish this statutory office, including accommodation and support staff? I should be grateful if in due course he could let me know the answers to those questions in writing.

As I said at the start, we agree with the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford. Clause 9 is much too narrowly drafted. We have spoken to these amendments because they are worthy in themselves but we should like to see the Government give a little ground as regards Clause 9.

[Lord Pannick]

My Lords, perhaps I may add a few words on Amendment 91. The defect in Clause 9(3) is that it defines the “exceptional case determination” exclusively by reference to breaches of convention rights and EU law rights. But those rights are designed as a floor and not a ceiling. It is most unfortunate that the Bill treats them as a ceiling. I hope that the Government, on reflection, agree that the interests of justice are criteria entirely appropriate for the responsible director to consider and to apply.

The wording of Clause 9(3) is very regrettable. If this amendment is not accepted, the consequence is that the director is compelled to deny legal aid even if he considers that the interests of justice require it in the circumstances of the case.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords, my name is attached to Amendment 91. It is common ground across the Committee that the concern of those of us putting forward amendments is that, not just occasionally but frequently, the Government will inadvertently cause serious injustice by the exclusions from scope to legal aid. We have had a lot of debate on that broad proposition. The exceptional case provision in the Bill is therefore of huge importance, and if it were to be couched in sufficiently wide language, I believe that it would go a long way towards assuaging some of the great concern that is felt, as I have said, across the Committee about what this Bill will do in practice.

I want to pick up on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Bach, that this amendment has been drafted by the Law Centres Federation. No other body of legal advice organisations in this land is as intimately knowledgeable of the on-the-ground reality of what, after this Bill has come into effect, will in practice be essential in order to avoid the greater injustices. Although my name is added to Amendment 91, I have to say that Amendment 91A is rather better and would also give the Government some solace. The arrangements that would result from it are defined in practical terms which the Government could accept. It may be that they would still be unhappy about the final subsection which talks generally about the “interests of justice”, and if that is the case, surely the way forward would be for the Government to accept the four paragraphs under the first subsection and add further ones as the price of excluding the general “interests of justice” exception. I hope that the Government will take this opportunity to put our minds at rest.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I would like to support this group of amendments. I am sure that some tidying up is needed, but on looking at the areas covered, I had thought originally that I was probably keener on the generality of the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, because it gives scope for decisions based on individual circumstances. Amendment 91A is more detailed and spells out several important areas, and that is helpful in many ways, but I wonder whether the age limit, when we are talking about vulnerable or disabled children, or even more important, children who have been in care, is not too low and should not be much closer to 25. However, I strongly support the intentions behind this group of amendments.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, it is important that we have moved on to Clause 9, covering exceptional funding, because this has been discussed in earlier amendments. Amendment 91, moved by my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford, would allow the director to fund excluded cases where he or she determines that it is generally in the interests of justice to do so. I am sure that Members of the Committee will readily acknowledge and appreciate that in this context, the phrase “interests of justice” is capable of wide interpretation. The amendment would create a power, which I am sure is its intention, that is considerably broader than the one currently being proposed in Clause 9 as it stands. It is right that there should be an exceptional funding scheme and that it should provide a potential safety net for the protection of individuals’ fundamental rights of access to justice, and we believe that Clause 9 achieves that important end. Exceptional funding determinations under Clause 9(3) will be made in accordance with the factors that the domestic courts and the European Court of Human Rights have held to be relevant in determining whether publicly funded legal assistance must be provided in an individual case.

Following on from that and looking at the jurisprudence, in considering whether legal aid should be provided in an individual case, the kind of factors that the director will need to take into account include: the importance of the issues to the individual concerned and the nature of the rights at stake; the complexity of the case; the capacity of the individual to represent themselves effectively; and alternative means of securing access to justice. These factors are broadly similar to the considerations that the Legal Services Commission currently takes into account in criminal proceedings where it is in the interests of justice for legal representation to be provided. I would suggest that our exceptional funding provisions are likely to meet the concerns of noble Lords in civil cases where, for example, Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights is engaged. Indeed, in moving his amendment, my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford accepted that there is substantial case law from Strasbourg in relation to family law and he almost seemed to acknowledge himself that there was a potential for very many cases indeed to qualify under the exceptional funding provisions as set out in the Bill. However, we believe that the insertion of the general phrase “interests of justice” would be open to very broad interpretation and would risk undermining the approach, scope and rationale for making changes to the legal aid system.

It has been acknowledged that Amendment 91A, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Bach, covers similar territory in that it would allow the director to make exceptional case determinations when it was appropriate to do so against specified criteria. As with Amendment 91, the potential ambit of this is extremely broad, and certain elements would be open to very wide interpretation. Again, however, I believe it is worth noting that many of the factors listed in the amendment, such as,

“the client’s vulnerability … the client’s capacity to represent themself … and … the availability of alternative sources of”,

funding will form at least part of the test for exceptional funding where Article 6 is engaged.

Amendment 91A also specifically refers to clients under the age of 18. In considering whether an individual case meets ECHR exceptional funding criteria, the director would be obliged to consider the ability of the client to present their own case, having regard to the complexity and importance of the issues in terms of what is at stake. Where a child brings an action without a litigation friend, that would be a relevant factor in deciding whether or not they have the ability to present their own case. In the end, the factors I have indicated will be taken into account by the director in deciding whether the absence of legal aid would mean that it was practically impossible for the applicant to present their case or would lead to an obvious unfairness in the proceedings.

The noble Lord, Lord Bach, asked whether legal aid would apply to advice and assistance. The answer is that in principle it could do so to the extent that it would avoid the breach of an individual’s rights under, for example, Article 6. Amendment 92 raises the issue of the chief coroner—

[Lord Pannick]

My Lords, in relation to Amendment 91, does the noble and learned Lord accept that Clause 9(3) as currently drafted will require the director to spend much of his or her time making determinations as to the scope and application of convention rights rather than focusing on the easier question of whether or not the interests of justice require legal aid? I would suggest to the noble and learned Lord that there is a real danger of satellite litigation as to whether or not convention rights or EU rights are in fact breached. Would it not be much more sensible and efficient, and much less expensive, to leave the director to focus on what he or she will be good at, which is asking whether the interests of justice require legal aid?

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

As ever the noble Lord puts a seductive argument, but there is a certain advantage in the director being required to have regard to convention rights because, if the test was the wider one of the undefined interests of justice, I am not sure whether that would lead to any less satellite litigation; it is possible that it could lead to more. He says that it would be easier, but when faced with that test without any guidance—with the exception of a certain amount of specificity set out in the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Bach—there would not be any real steer for the director if that is all he is to be left with when making decisions.

19:00

[Lord Pannick]

It would be very difficult to challenge a director’s decision as to whether the interests of justice are met because it is a subjective test. If the test, as under Clause 9(3), is hard-edged—that is, whether there is a breach of the convention—it is much easier to bring a legal claim in that respect.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

Having a definition which in these circumstances would be so broad—which I think the noble Lord is saying is a merit of it—opens up vast scope, as I said in response to my noble friend Lord Thomas.

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

I shall have my chance to reply later, but it is important that we focus on this. My noble and learned friend says that it is a broad interpretation and opens up a wide field, but everything is governed by that word “exceptional”. We have referred to that word in earlier discussions and debate during the passage of this Bill. “Exceptional” takes it out of the ordinary; it is unusual, outside what is normal. That cuts down the broad interpretation. You need a wide field because exceptional cases do not arise simply in relation to what the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, referred to as the “floor”—the minimum rights guaranteed by the convention; they can come out from left field, as the Americans would say. Something quite unexpected is exceptional, which would not necessarily engage the rights under the European convention or European law. “Exceptional” cuts down the broad interpretation for which the noble Lord is arguing.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

It may cut it down, but it leaves it still without any parameters, subject to “exceptional”, whereas in what is being proposed the kind of factors which the director would be required to take into account are those which I think people would agree are relevant, particularly in determining whether an application is exceptional. The importance of the issue is to the individual concerned: the nature of the rights at stake, the complexity of the case, the capacity of the individual to represent him or herself effectively and whether there are alternative means of securing access to justice. These are not airy fairy considerations; they are ones which I would fully expect the director to be able to bring to bear in dealing with individual cases, and I am sure he would do so. Everyone who makes an application no doubt thinks that their case is in the interests of justice and that it should be funded. At least, there is some indication here as to what criteria the director will apply.

On Amendment 92, I accept what the noble Lord, Lord Bach, said, and we will ensure that the specific questions that he asked about the chief coroner get a response as soon as we can. His amendment would make it a requirement for the director to consult the chief coroner and have regard to his views before making a significant wider public interest determination about whether to fund advocacy at an inquest. Inquest cases can currently be funded if there is a “significant wider public interest” in the applicant being represented. This is a term with a clear definition under the funding code: benefits to the wider public must be tangible, must be likely to accrue to a substantial number of people and must arise as a consequence of the representation. It is not enough for there to be a general public interest in the case.

The Government consider it important to retain the ability to fund inquest representation on the basis of the wider public interest because the provision of such representation may lead to findings which help prevent future deaths. That is why Clause 9(4), which I think in its generality the noble Lord welcomes, gives the director the power to provide funding on the basis of a “wider public interest” determination.

The onus has never been on the decision-maker to consult coroners—I am well aware that I am in the presence of someone who had to make these decisions on many occasions and I recognise the experience of the noble Lord, Lord Bach, in these matters. Indeed, many coroners may not wish to give a view at all. Some are not prepared to give a view about substantive elements of the case until the inquest is being held. However, under the current guidance on the existing exceptional funding system, the views of coroners are material, though not determinative, to decisions concerning the requirement for funding to be provided in order to fulfil the state’s obligations under Article 2 of the European convention.

Consequently, coroners are far more likely to give a view about potential ECHR engagement in inquests than on whether the case has significant wider public interest.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

I apologise for interrupting my noble and learned friend. He may be aware that a boy called Jake Hardy died today as a result of suicide in Hindley Young Offender Institution, a matter that I am sure we would all regret and wish to express our deep sympathy to his family. Can he really see a distinction in inquests between a case in which that young man’s family have an interest and a case in which a wider public have an interest? Is it really the intention of the Government that the family should not be entitled to legal aid if it is not identified that there is a wider interest in the outcome of the inquest? That is a distinction made by this clause.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, I have to confess that I have not heard that news, although they are obviously tragic circumstances and I associate myself with expressions of regret. When one does not know the circumstances, I always find it very difficult to extrapolate from them to a wider general principle. I hope that my noble friend will forgive me if I do not follow him down that line, because I simply do not know all the facts and circumstances.

In decisions on whether legal aid is required to fulfil the state’s obligations under Article 2 of the ECHR, it would seem incongruous to make it a statutory requirement for the chief coroner to be asked for his or her views on the significant wider public interest aspect of the case. To compel the director to consult the chief coroner in all cases which come for a determination is likely to add considerably to the administrative element of the assessment process and lead to delays for bereaved families. In turn, it would represent a burden on the chief coroner, who would almost certainly be unfamiliar with the circumstances of many cases, unlike the individual coroner who is holding the inquest. The chief coroner would therefore be required to acquaint him or herself with information pertaining to a number of cases with no obvious benefit for bereaved families, who have a locus in this. In these circumstances, there is no obvious benefit in individual coroners or the chief coroner mandating what would inevitably be an additional process in the legal proceedings.

Amendment 92A would compel the director to make provision for the payment of reasonable costs incurred by any person making a successful application under this section. The concept of “reasonable costs” is open to broad interpretation and might be seen to authorise payments at a commercial rather than a legal aid rate. Nevertheless, discussions with the Legal Services Commission about the precise remuneration arrangements for exceptional funding applications are ongoing and we fully expect to propose that the costs associated with the making of successful exceptional funding applications will be payable. I hope that that gives some reassurance to the noble Lord.

The exceptional funding scheme being introduced by the Government will give the director a narrowly drawn power to provide civil legal services that are not available under Schedule 1—hence their being “excluded cases”—where there are exceptional circumstances. We have reviewed questions of the European convention and issues relating to the death of a family member. An individual must qualify for such services in accordance, too, with Clause 10, which means that decisions on exceptional funding will be subject to the means and merits criteria. However, we believe that this is an essential safeguard for fundamental rights of access to justice which will underpin our proposals for changes to the scope of civil legal aid. The Director of Legal Aid Casework will make these exceptional funding decisions. This is a departure from the current position where the Lord Chancellor makes individual funding decisions in relation to excluded cases. Clause 4(4), which has already been debated, explicitly prohibits the Lord Chancellor from giving directions or guidance to the director in relation to individual cases. This will guarantee the objectivity of the decision-making process, in respect of both in-scope and excluded cases, and serve as a safeguard against political interference.

Clause 9(3)(a) provides the director with the power to make an exceptional case determination where the director considers that the failure to provide legal services to an individual would be a breach of the individual’s rights under the convention or European Union law, as we have discussed.

I recognise that concerns have been expressed about the parameters of the exceptional funding scheme that the Bill will create. I am sure—it is obviously the case—that many noble Lords would prefer a broader discretionary power in the Bill but, if I may take the Committee back to the fundamental purposes of the changes that we are making to the general legal aid scheme, we need these reforms to create a fair, balanced and sustainable legal aid system. We have taken into account the importance of the issue; the litigant’s ability to present his or her own case, including the vulnerability of the litigant; the availability of alternative sources of funding; and the availability of other routes towards resolution. We have used these factors to prioritise funding so that civil legal aid will be available in the highest priority cases—again, I repeat, essentially where, first and foremost, people’s lives and liberty are at stake; they are at risk of serious physical harm; they risk the immediate loss of their home; or their children may be taken into care. If we make wholesale changes to the exceptional funding provisions in the Bill, we risk undermining the overall reforms to the scope of civil legal aid.

That said, it is nevertheless our expectation that there will be several thousand applications under the new scheme and that there will not be a fixed budget for exceptional funding. It is our intention to publish more details concerning the operation of the proposed exceptional funding scheme and the associated guidance in due course. The guidance will largely be based on the factors that the domestic courts and the European Court of Human Rights have held to be relevant in determining whether publicly funded legal assistance must be provided in an individual case.

In these circumstances, we believe that this will be a route down which applicants will go and, as my noble friend said when moving his amendment, that it will cover a considerable number of cases. I invite my noble friend to withdraw the amendment and to be reassured by the structure and architecture which is in place with this important clause, in addition to those cases which already will be in scope under Schedule 1.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern]

My Lords, having listened to what we have heard in connection with these amendments, it occurs to me, first, that, for some reason which is no doubt clear to some, “exceptional” is used in order to be defined, so the exceptional quality does not come into the definition of exceptional cases.

My second point is that, although “the interests of justice” is a rather general and vague subject, on the other hand if you turn it round and say that the director, before he allowed this ground to prevail, had to be satisfied that there was a real risk of injustice unless legal aid was granted in a particular case, that would focus on the issue in the case in a more distinct and direct way than the phrase “the interests of justice”, which has been used in many contexts in the past. I agree that, on the whole, it is a vague phrase, but turning it round might make it a little more attractive to my noble and learned friend.

19:15

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My noble and learned friend focuses on the word “exceptional”. My understanding of the term “exceptional cases” and the architecture of the proposed scheme is that there will be civil legal services available as described in Part 1 of Schedule 1, subject to Parts 2 and 3, for cases which are in scope. There will also be civil legal services available for cases which do not fall within Schedule 1 but which are, as it were, exceptional. That is set out in Clause 9. I am certainly interested in what my noble and learned friend said about turning the phrase around, which has a certain seductive charm. I would not want to immediately agree to that but, without commitment, it is certainly something that I would want to think about.

That said, the provisions we have here are quite substantive in their degree of direction and the extent to which the director can apply the convention jurisprudence as to which cases would fall within subsection (3). So there is a degree of certainty. Obviously, each case will depend on its merits, but at least there will be some indication of the kind of factors and the relevant jurisprudence that the director will take into account. As I have said, I certainly find that the concept of “the interests of justice”, undefined as it is, is probably too vague to be in the Bill without undermining the scope of the scheme that is being proposed.

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

I understood my noble and learned friend to say a moment ago that “exceptional” means no more than it is a case outside Schedule 1, not that it is exceptional in the class of cases. That is a very different concept. I had understood “exceptional” to be in a class of cases that are not covered by Schedule 1 and not in scope and that you would need to have an exceptional case in that class of cases. However, if “exceptional” means, as my noble and learned friend said—and no doubt he will think about it—that it is merely a case that is outside Schedule 1, that is a very different situation.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, I shall certainly think about it. Clearly, if it falls within scope, it falls within scope, whereas we have discussed some cases which would not necessarily fall within scope. We had a lengthy discussion on clinical negligence, which does not fall within scope but would nevertheless be an exceptional case—obviously as determined and defined in Clause 9.

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

My point is that a clinical negligence case, on what the noble and learned Lord said, as I understood it, would be exceptional. So that qualification is immediately fulfilled and then you are concerned only with the convention rights. However, any clinical negligence case would be exceptional.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

No. When debating clinical negligence cases we agreed that they did not fall within Schedule 1. However, clinical negligence cases would be exceptional if they met the criteria set out in Clause 9. In particular I go back to the debate on the criteria which relate to the individual’s convention rights within the meaning of the Human Rights Act 1998. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said that this is a floor operation rather than a ceiling operation but, nevertheless, Article 6 of the European convention is an important threshold and, in that respect, is exceptional. I hope I have not made things less clear. The policy is to limit this to where a failure to accept cases and make an exceptional determination would breach an individual’s convention rights or any right to the provision of legal services enforceable under European Union law. That is the nature of the exceptional circumstances.

If we go any further we will probably tie ourselves up in knots. We almost got there when we were looking at clinical negligence cases in which the exceptional circumstances as defined here, with particular reference to convention rights, would apply.

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, before the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, replies to the debate, I hint to the Minister that he should listen very carefully both to what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, suggested and to what the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, invited him to say about the expression “exceptional”. Can he also let us know—not in due course but reasonably quickly—some more details about how it is intended that Clause 9 will work and the kind of funding that will be available under it? He said those questions would be replied to in due course, but it is important before we pass Report in this case to know a bit more about the Government’s intentions in Clause 9.

My real point in getting to my feet now is that, though I may have missed what the Minister said, I do not think he answered my short query about whether the way that Clause 9 is drafted at the moment excludes any prospect of legal aid for initial advice and assistance. That is an important point in relation to the fact that that initial advice can stop things in their tracks at a much earlier stage and save the legal aid fund a lot of money.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, first, I indicated when replying to my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern that I certainly want to reflect on what he said. It would be wise to do so. On the question that the noble Lord raised, I think I replied but I can quite understand in the context of my reply that the noble Lord did not hear it. I now want to make sure that I get it right. My reply was to the effect that initial advice and assistance could in principle be granted under Clause 9, to the extent that to grant it would be necessary to avoid a breach of the individual’s rights, for example, under Article 6. That is perhaps not as wide as the noble Lord hoped, but in principle there could be circumstances where it would be available.

[Lord Bach]

I am grateful.

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

My Lords, my noble and learned friend referred to guidance that would be given to the director in due course about how he approached his task. I would indeed expect that the criteria for what is exceptional would be published by the director as one of his first tasks. An application form for exceptional funding would no doubt have a block saying, “You will not get this funding unless it is exceptional in the following sense”, or some guidance like that. Accordingly, it would be quite possible to publish criteria as to what the director would consider to be in the interests of justice generally, but I defer to the expression that was used by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, about there being a real risk of injustice if legal aid is not granted. That seems an admirable way to approach it, and I will press that on my noble and learned friend in due course. For the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 91 withdrawn.

Amendments 91A to 92A not moved.

Clause 9 agreed.

Clause 10 : Qualifying for civil legal aid

Amendment 93

Moved by

[Lord Beecham]

93: Clause 10, page 7, line 23, leave out subsection (4)

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, in the interests of life, liberty and the pursuit of nourishment, I will be uncharacteristically brief in moving these amendments which relate to Clause 10 and the qualifications for civil legal aid.

Amendment 93 seeks to delete subsection (4):

“In setting the criteria, the Lord Chancellor must seek to secure that, in cases in which there is more than one description of service that could be provided for an individual, the individual qualifies under this Part for the service which in all the circumstances is the most appropriate having regard to the criteria”.

What that means and how significant it is escapes me. Perhaps in replying the noble Lord, Lord McNally, could amplify the meaning of it. In addition, another curious subsection states:

“The criteria must reflect the principle that, in many disputes, mediation and other forms of dispute resolution are more appropriate than legal proceedings”.

It may be a fact but it can hardly be a principle—but that may be me being pedantic again. I have already been rebuked by my noble friend Lord Bach for correcting his use of the word “decimate”. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, may wish to rebuke me in this context.

Amendment 95 is simply designed to ensure that, if regulations are made, draft regulations should be laid before and approved by an affirmative resolution in each House of Parliament. We have had this amendment moved in respect of other regulations. It seems appropriate in this case that we should follow that course. I beg to move.

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I would not dare to try to correct the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, on his English. I am still recovering from being corrected by the noble Lord, Lord Prescott, earlier in the Bill. I move in these circles with due caution.

I will address Amendment 95 first, which echoes the recommendation by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee to subject changes to the merits criteria to the affirmative resolution procedure. We have given careful consideration to what the committee said in its report about the procedure for the regulations under Clause 10(1)(b) and it is our intention to bring forward an amendment at a later stage to provide for regulations under Clause 10(1)(b) to generally be subject to the affirmative procedure. However, the amendment will also need to provide for a procedure along the lines of but not necessarily identical to that in Section 9(7) and (8) of the Access to Justice Act 1999 to allow for changes to be made quickly if necessary. With that explanation and assurance, I hope the noble Lord will not press his amendment.

Amendment 93 seeks to remove Clause 10(4) from the Bill. Clause 10(4) is based firmly on Section 8(4) of the Access to Justice Act 1999, which also contains an equivalent provision about the merits criteria. The funding code criteria made pursuant to Section 8 of the Access to Justice Act enshrine this principle. The purpose of Clause 10(4) is clear. It ensures that, where more than one level of service might be available, the merits criteria in the regulations under Clause 10 should be sure that the individual qualifies for the services which in all circumstances are the most appropriate having regard to the criteria. Often, one level of service will be most appropriate at the beginning of a case but the need of the applicant will change over time as the case progresses. Section 8(4) of the Access to Justice Act accounts for this.

The benefits of the provisions in Clause 10(4) are twofold. First, we can avoid unnecessary spending by ensuring that the appropriate level of service is funded. Secondly, applicants will benefit by receiving the level of service most appropriate to their needs. This is not a one-way street. There are likely to be instances where it would clearly be more appropriate for representation rather than help to be provided. The assessment will be an objective one, based on the criteria and all the circumstances of the individual case. In those circumstances, I hope the noble Lord will withdraw his amendments.

[Lord Beecham]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for confirming that changes will be made with respect to the regulation. I am happy to accept his explanation of what seemed beyond my limited intellectual grasp in that subsection. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 93 withdrawn.

Amendments 94 and 95 not moved.

Clause 10 agreed.

House resumed. Committee to begin again not before 8.29 pm.

Design Education and Growth

Tuesday 24th January 2012 Lords Chamber

Question for Short Debate

19:29

Asked By

[Baroness Whitaker]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their response to the Design Commission’s report Restarting Britain: Design Education and Growth.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Gibson of Market Rasen)]

My Lords, before we begin the dinner break business, I point out that the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, will be the last speaker in this debate, not the penultimate one, as it says on the speakers list.

[Baroness Whitaker]

My Lords, the raison d’etre of the new parliamentary Design Commission, whose first report is the subject of this debate, is that we do not pay enough attention to design—not enough attention economically, because it is one of the great, and potentially even greater, contributors to economic growth; not enough attention socially, because well designed environments, services and equipment create well-being, efficiency and security; and, the subject of the report, not enough attention educationally, the key to the other omissions.

The Design Commission grew out of lack of action in response to the All Party Associate Parliamentary Design and Innovation Group report on design and public procurement, Design and the Public Good, which I had the privilege of co-chairing, with Deborah Dawton, chief executive of the Design Business Association. The new commission is fortunate indeed to have as its chair someone of such distinction in the field as the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, and I look forward very much to hearing what he will say in this new role.

We focused on education for our first report because design education is in some peril. Not enough people realise how important design is in creating the technical and intellectual capacity we need for the 21st century. One of those who does, of course, is the noble Lord, Lord Baker, and I am delighted that he will be speaking today. My co-chair, Vicky Pryce, is herself a distinguished economist, and our report took evidence from business leaders such as Sir James Dyson and Sir John Rose, formerly of Rolls-Royce, academics and experts such as Dr Paul Thompson of the Royal College of Art and Sir Christopher Frayling, and, of course, other designers themselves. Sir John Sorrell gave eloquent testimony to the powers of design for school-age children. The newly honoured Sir Jonathan Ive, our British export to Apple, spoke at an adjunct seminar mounted by the Design Council. Our evidence makes a very good read, and I recommend it. We asked four questions: why does design matter; what is the current situation in design education; what are our competitors doing; and what must we do to compete?

We came up with some interesting and disturbing answers. Design is central to growth because it is the link, in Sir Christopher Frayling’s words, between disciplines like engineering and science and the production of the goods and services that we trade. As I said, good design makes the world a better place in all sorts of ways that matter profoundly. We teach design superlatively well here and there, but we have not got it lodged within the higher education science, technology, engineering and mathematics complex; we have not got enough intermediate further education shorter diplomas to equip the more technical workforce that we need; and, the most glaring gap, we do not teach all our school students with sufficient rigour that large proportion of the skills and capacities which would not only prepare them for a wide range of work calling on design, but for 21st-century work in general.

What do I mean by that? I mean a problem-solving approach; the capacity to work collaboratively; interdisciplinary capability; taking into account the participation of the end-user—that is us, the users; and the habit, and satisfaction, of creating projects which work. These are what lead to innovation and these are the qualities that business needs in its future employees if we are to make a better success of an innovative knowledge economy. They are not fundamental to the way in which art and design or design and technology are taught in school today, and they are hard to acquire from other subjects.

Nevertheless, at present, our competitors, particularly in Asia, send their students here to qualify in design. I met some at Imperial College a few weeks ago, from China, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Middle East, mixing with our own talented design engineering students in one of the few integrated courses, supported by Buro Happold. But that competitive edge will not be for long. South Korea has several new academic design institutions and it is not alone.

To keep up our leading international position, we need some changes in education. Briefly, first, like all good education recommendations, there needs to be an idea about society. The Government should have, like the Governments of the design-strong countries—Finland, Denmark, South Korea—an idea about the part that design plays in society, from the beautiful axe blades of the High Peak, long before written history, and an active national design strategy, which they clearly own and pursue. The chief educational elements of such a strategy should be at least: first, protection and increased support for the development of our unbeatable higher education centres of excellence in innovation and design—and that means for research as well as teaching; secondly, a real broadening of the pathways into design-related careers after school by means of higher-level vocational qualifications; and, thirdly, perhaps least understood, a hard look at how design is taught in schools with a view to making it more widespread and also more rigorous, creative and interesting. Mr Gove’s recent announcement of an overhaul of ICT teaching might provide a model.

Design matters, and if we do not act accordingly we shall lose out in many ways. I very much look forward to the speeches of our select but eminent speakers—and, of course, to the Minister’s response.

19:37

[Lord Baker of Dorking]

I welcome this report and congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, on being the inspiration behind it, with her enthusiasm and dedication. Without it, I do not think that the report would ever have appeared.

The essence of the report is that our recovery as a manufacturing country depends on innovation and invention throughout our society, from aero engines down to carpet sweepers. That is really what the report is saying—and it is quite right to say that if we are going to have that sense of innovation it must be bedded into the education system of our country. It has to start in our schools, further education colleges and universities.

When one talks of design, one is often tempted to think of the one or two geniuses in design. These geniuses, rather like the 24 bus service, do not come in pairs—and, rather like the 24 bus service, there is a long gap until the next one appears. Innovation and design depend on hundreds and thousands of people in companies large and small, in any economy. We should be very proud of the fact that in our history we have a tremendous record of this. If you study the industrial revolution—although it has dropped out of the school curriculum almost totally, so it is almost impossible to do so—from 1730 to 1830, you would know the great names. There was Thomas Newcomen’s beam engine, Arkwright’s spinning jenny, Watt’s first steam condenser and Joseph Bramah’s lock. You would study all those—but behind them were tens of thousands of people. If you look at the patent registrations in the 18th century, it was happening day after day. When Hargreaves published his own patent application in 1740 for a spinning jenny, he referred to,

“much application and many trials”.

What those great names were all recording was not a great breakthrough in invention but a series of micro-inventions. The history of the industrial revolution is a history of one gadget after another that made the spinning jenny better. First, there was Kay, who realised that you could use a mechanical means to take the warp through the weft. After that there were endless changes by people who, working with their hands, discovered a slightly better way in which to do it. We would not have had the ultimate spinning jenny of Arkwright until he decided that two rollers were better than one, because two rollers made the thread a bit stronger and longer. We would not have had the rocket of Stephenson unless we had micro-inventions such as a dial on a steam boiler, or indeed the need for it to run on reverse fumes. The point I am trying to get over is that these are micro-inventions by people who had worked on those early machines and made them better. The hand-working is therefore very important.

This is where the report is a bit inadequate, if I may say so, because it does not recognise the importance in education of doing things with one's hands. I am a strong believer in doing as well as seeing in education. Perhaps that comes from my own education, because I attended a grammar school in Lancashire at the end of the war and the only lesson that I remember from that school was the three hours of carpentry that I had, where I learnt to do tenon joints and dovetail joints. If pushed I can still do them, and it made me handy in life, as it were. I have a great belief that all our children, in all our schools, should experience doing things with their hands. That is not the same as doing things on your computer; it is actually making and fashioning things.

I recommend to the House a book that was published in America last year by an American professor of philosophy who also runs his own motorcycle repair workshop in Virginia, where he repairs motorcycle engines. It is The Case for Working with Your Hands: or Why Office Work is Bad for Us and Fixing Things Feels Good. That is very much the essence of the university technical colleges that I am seeking to establish across the country, which are based very much on practical hand-work. I am glad to say that while all of them do engineering, some are specifically doing design engineering. The one that opened in Walsall last year, in the Black Country, is doing design engineering alongside the STEM subjects, and its particular courses are going to be on new product design and development. Siemens is helping it by coming in and devising the teaching modules that are needed in those courses. This is something that industry has never done before in the education system.

We asked the companies not just for day release or apprenticeships but to come in and design the actual courses. Rolls-Royce apprentices came over from Derby and in the UTC in Staffordshire set up courses to design piston pumps and to make them for eight weeks. When youngsters have done that, they have used their hands and got to know the use of metals and the effect of mechanical changes. The one in central Bedfordshire, which is opening this year, is going to do design engineering with BAE and with Cranfield, the postgraduate university. My time is almost up, so I must design the end by saying simply that the practical hands-on work in education is essential for innovation and design, and for the future growth of our country.

19:43

[Lord Cotter]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, for introducing this timely and important debate, and I compliment the noble Lord, Lord Baker, the previous speaker, on the work that he is doing on university technical colleges. My interest comes from my experience as managing director of a plastics manufacturing company before I came into Parliament, and I have spent a great deal of time in this House on business apprenticeships and career progression. In the Design Commission's report, the present Chancellor is quoted as saying:

“I want Britain to be the home of the greatest scientists, the greatest engineers, the greatest businesses—a land of innovators”,

which, with my focus, is good news. However, I also accept the comments made in the report about this being an incomplete vision, on which the report goes on to elaborate in due course. However, if I may concentrate on the business field, I should say that those are warm words from the Chancellor but they need to be put into practice, as indeed a wider vision of design should be.

With this engineering/business focus in mind, it has been concerning to learn that, after over 20 years with design and technology as a core element of the curriculum, that is at risk. A recent report from the Design Council indicated that firms that used design intensively outperform those who did not by 200 per cent or thereabouts. The report also stated that 80 per cent of UK businesses believe that design will help them stay competitive in the current economic climate. A further point produced by the report indicates that every £100 spent on design by businesses that are alert to it increases their turnover by something in the order of £220. I hope that I am not coming over as too mercenary, but I said that I wanted to focus on business and to a large extent on manufacturing.

Using as a source a recent report from the Design and Technology Association, there was great concern about downgrading design and technology in the education system. We must ask the Government to be aware of that risk to this country's economy if these areas are downgraded. Rather than being decreased, the emphasis in our education system needs to be design-linked with technology for the future, for our economy and, most importantly, for jobs. As Sir James Dyson, the well-known designer, inventor and innovator, said, “If the Department for Education is thinking of removing D&T from the curriculum, it will be at the expense of British ingenuity”—words from someone who has been a leader in this field of design and has gone on from designing to producing products that have been extremely successful. When it comes to design and technology education, the call is that the Government need to recognise, keep and support it.

With my focus on business, perhaps I might briefly refer to concerns about careers advice and guidance. I am sure that I am not alone in remembering from my time at school quite how inadequate careers advice was in those days. It was the sort of subject that was given to a teacher who was told, “Do a bit of careers advice and get on with it”, or that type of thing. Sadly it appears, generally speaking, that this situation still applies today. Since we are living in this global world—in times past it was not a global world and not as competitive as it is today—we must ensure that we have the right schools in this country. So often when I meet business people, I hear about the lack of the necessary skills associated with manufacturing, particularly in design but also in engineering and technology. That is of very great concern indeed.

There is the concern that if we do not get this right, it will harm the economy considerably. We must get it right and go beyond the concept that for careers advice and guidance, young people can switch on a computer and get all the information that they need. This is not so, and it is so important that the Government ensure that we improve our careers guidance and advice through much more one-to-one engagement with young people, who need encouragement, who need to be told what there is out there to do, and who need to be advised that they could contribute well to this country through design technology and the education that they get in that field.

19:49

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

My Lords, I welcome this report and the interesting debate that we are having today. It must not just be one debate; we need a long debate about this nationally if we are really going to solve some of these problems.

In a way, design finds itself in an unusual position: I have never known anyone who was against design. There is no army of people out there making a case against it. Sometimes when that happens, because there is no core to the debate, you find that everyone thinks that it is a good thing but no one really fights for it to be as good as it could be. I suspect that in this debate today we will all agree with each other on the whole, and there is a danger that we will be left thinking, “So what are we going to carry on campaigning about and striving for after this?”.

Design has often been seen as a very nice optional extra. In the past, if you could afford something and it had good design, all to the good, but if you could not afford the “good design” bit, never mind—you could just get on with the basic version. To some extent, the best thing about this report is that it shows how wrong that attitude is.

There has been something of a revolution in design in recent years, and the report puts that very powerfully. It talks about the ability of design to unlock the commercial potential of the United Kingdom’s research base, and then it has a lovely quote, mentioning that all the essential services,

“all the things that make civilised societies function well … are”—

here I would add, “in part”—“dependent on good design”. However, I am not sure that that is what the British public think. If you polled that, I am not sure that they would say, “That’s terrible”, but they would not say, “Absolutely, that’s what drives my life day in and day out”. Part of the challenge is to win the argument in a much more powerful way than we have done so far.

The roots of design might be seen to be in craft, technical and creative skills. There was national pride in that in the 1960s, the 1970s and into the 1980s. There was a national context and a national culture in which they flourished and were understood and welcomed by the education system and society in general. We were a nation that could make things. We knew what an apprenticeship was. There were vocational routes from school into higher education. We had the polytechnics, which—I did not think this when we abolished them, but I realise it now—were great advocates for providing that route for design and vocational skills. My argument is that design has changed. It has progressed, as everything does, but I am not sure that we have captured that national context and culture in which it can truly take its place. It is an in-between land; it still thinks that it is in the context and culture in the past, but in fact those who know a lot about design—I would not put myself in that category—understand that it has moved on.

There are some problems with that culture at the moment. First, there is that lack of understanding of the role and importance of design in the 21st century. Secondly, the education system now is not as understanding and in praise of interdisciplinary work as it was two decades ago. We have gone back to straight subjects in silos without making the joins between them, and with polytechnics now being part of universities we do not have that clear route through apprenticeships, BTECs and HNDs into vocational and design degrees. Since the introduction of the national curriculum by the noble Lord, Lord Baker, in 1988, the subject that has had the greatest turmoil is design; the curriculum has been rewritten time and again. I do not think that this is a political issue at all, but some of the things that are around at the moment, such as the emphasis on a traditional curriculum, an apparent lack of empathy with creative subjects—particularly through the English baccalaureate—and the higher education funding of design are not helping the case for design.

There is probably general agreement across the House that more needs to be done, but what? My perhaps contentious contribution is that it is all too easy to say that if we made it compulsory for every child in every year of schooling the problems would be solved, but I am not sure that that is the case. The more difficult task is to win the case and make it so good that schools want to teach it and children want to learn it. Sometimes, giving something the hook of compulsion actually makes you take your foot off the accelerator in making it a very good subject. The Government can show some leadership and begin to oil the wheels of making that happen. The work that the noble Lord, Lord Baker, is doing with university technical colleges is excellent, and I welcome a chance to say so again.

If you look at where design and schools have worked effectively together—where the pedagogy has been right—it has been where we have invited the world of design to work with teachers and come up with something completely different. The Joined Up Design For Schools work done by the Sorrell Foundation was a perfect example of that. My plea would be that in design, more than in any other subject, the use of time, skills and space in our schools must be innovatively engineered and used in a different way. Let us make it exciting and new but, most of all, something that we can do between us: reclaim the culture and the context in which 21st-century design can flourish.

19:55

[Lord Bichard]

My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, on enabling this debate and thank her for it.

It is true that many people regard design as largely concerned with aesthetics or with products such as furniture or ceramics. As a result, they regard it as a marginal issue—something that is good and desirable but not essential. However, as we have heard today, design has the power to restart Britain and, as the noble Lord, Lord Baker, has pointed out, not for the first time. Design has the power to help us answer some of the big questions that we face today: how do we stimulate growth; how can we make our businesses more profitable; how can we be more competitive in international markets; how can we provide improved public services at less cost; how can we realise the potential of our great scientific and technological innovations; how can we be more creative and innovative as a nation; how can we deliver the benefits of our engineering excellence; and how do we build places and buildings in which people can thrive?

I am not a designer, but I am convinced that design is key to answering those questions, both in the private sector because it is clear that, as the noble Lord, Lord Cotter, has said, design-led companies are more successful, but also in the public sector because surely by now we must realise that redesigning and reshaping our services is the only way that we are going to deliver better services at less cost and that just restructuring the bureaucracies will not prove successful.

We need design. We need service design as well as product and industrial engineering design. Indeed, we need a national design strategy and outstanding designers. This report is about trying to ensure that our education system continues to deliver the talent that we need at the moment. Not surprisingly, the report emphasises the need to protect design in higher education, where we are undoubtedly world leaders. Less obviously, it highlights ways in which the further education sector could play a much greater role in developing design and designers in this country.

Crucially, the report stresses the need to ensure that design has a place in the school curriculum too. There are very good reasons why it should, and those reasons go well beyond the need to inspire potential great designers of the future. Design education in schools provides opportunities for students to develop the generic skills that will be useful to them throughout their working lives, as well as the employability skills that employers now need. As we have heard, design education in schools can help to produce young people much better able to work in key growth sectors such as engineering, advanced manufacturing and the creative industries—and let us not forget that the creative industries are now the largest economic sector in London.

Design education in schools provides the opportunity for many young people who do not excel in traditional academic subjects to realise their own special talents. It has always seemed to me that the major purpose of education must be to enable every young person to liberate their potential to fulfil their talent. Design education can provide for many a clear pathway to a range of careers at craft and technician levels that are too often undervalued and too often seem unattractive to both young people and their parents.

It is, as the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, said, encouraging that the Government are prepared to review the way in which IT is taught in schools, and to recognise the critical importance of computer literacy for our economy and society. However, many of the same arguments apply to design but are nowhere near as well understood and well articulated. I hope this report goes some way to redressing that balance.

It is always a complete delight to have the Minister responding to our debates. I hope that she will lend support to the need for a national design strategy. However, it is also important that the Department for Education acknowledges the importance of this issue and looks for ways not of requiring, as the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, said, but of encouraging schools to feature design on the curriculum. That should happen not just in specialist schools, excellent though they are, but in all schools. Design education, like design, is not a desirable extra; it should be a key part of education for all young people.

20:01

[Baroness Kingsmill]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Whitaker for introducing this debate and for suggesting to me that I might speak in it. It happens to be an area in which I am most interested.

I started my working life in Paris, sitting on little gold stools at Christian Dior, Yves St Laurent and the like, scribbling away, trying to determine which fashion trends would be the hits of the following season. Under the tutelage of two very stylish French women, I began to understand and recognise good design. I spent six years in the heady world of fashion, working with highly talented designers, whose creativity and innovation contributed to establishing France as a global leader in the fashion industry and to the growth of some of its biggest companies, such as LVMH and PPR.

We, too, have a flourishing fashion industry, which last year is estimated to have contributed, directly and indirectly, £37 billion to our GDP. However, this is small beer compared to the giant fashion design houses of Italy and France. We are well known for our brilliant young designers and their edgy, innovative styles, but many of these young British designers are head-hunted away to France and Italy, where their talents are often more appreciated than they are here in the UK. Designers such as Stella McCartney, Alexander McQueen and Phoebe Philo are well established names who have found the design environment more supportive in France and Italy than it is here, and have been enabled to develop their own hugely successful global brands as a result.

What is perhaps less well known is that many of the big international design houses, such as Marc Jacobs and Prada, are full of the brightest and best British designers, who have been unable to find an outlet for their talents in the UK. One distinguished magazine editor told me that British designers are the creative engine of the French fashion industry. We seem to be able to produce design talent but it appears that we just do not know how to use, develop and nurture it. We do not take design seriously. What a waste of an opportunity. As we slip down the world’s economic rankings, it is vital that we do not neglect the talents of designers.

I have been talking about fashion design because that is where I spent several years, but there are many other sectors where design is a significant driver of growth. As others have mentioned, the brilliant Jonathan Ive, whose creative partnership with Steve Jobs made Apple one of the world’s biggest companies, is a perfect example of how a business can be transformed by a great designer. The superbly designed terminal 5, which has so enhanced the air passenger’s experience of airports, is another. Dyson, too, demonstrates how innovative engineering design can completely change our perception of mundane domestic appliances and create economic growth and success.

Design and technology is a popular subject in schools. Young people like the problem-solving it entails and it is always satisfying to have an end product. I remember the stool that I designed when I was in school with more pride than any essay I ever wrote. We need to encourage and improve the teaching of design and ensure its place in the national curriculum. There is an enormous appetite among children and young people for this. I was deputy chairman of the Design Museum for six or seven years and this superb institution, under the consistent sponsorship and guidance of Sir Terence Conran, ran many hugely popular education programmes for young people. Its exhibitions raised awareness of the importance of design in a variety of fields, from street furniture to wallpaper, from shoes to aero-engine turbine blades, and many more. However, more needs to be done to ensure that the creative and innovative design talent for which we are justly praised in other countries is properly nurtured and encouraged at home.

20:05

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, I rise to speak in the space allocated to me by the usual channels with some regret. I thought that the noble Baroness the Minister and I had been switched to illustrate that we have a common approach to this, and that our speeches would be so sympathetic to each other that they could be delivered in each other’s places. Mine has to be shorter, which is a slight difficulty, but we look forward to what the Minister will say.

I start by thanking my noble friend Lady Whitaker for introducing this discussion, and all the speakers, particularly for the insights from their earlier lives from the noble Lords, Lord Baker and Lord Cotter, and my noble friend Lady Kingsmill. I particularly thank the new Design Commission itself, the first report of which is indeed a good read. It is clearly setting high standards and we eagerly await its future output.

The key messages that we need to take away from this debate are that, as a country, as the noble Lord, Lord Cotter, said, we do not understand what design can do for us both economically and socially. We do not pay enough attention to design as a new and distinctive way of manufacturing and delivering goods and services. We need to change fundamentally how we prepare people for the world of work, and use design to drive growth and prosperity in the years to come.

The report that we are discussing this evening is mainly about education. We have been told that there are a few places where we currently teach design as well as anywhere else in the world, but we do not have it properly interpolated within the STEM subjects as they are currently taught in higher education; and, despite the good work of the noble Lord, Lord Baker, on the university technical colleges, we do not have nearly enough courses to equip technical people to support the areas of work in design.

The most glaring gap is that we are on the point of removing design from the school curriculum. Surely, on the basis of the very strong arguments that we have heard tonight, the Government should immediately reconsider the direction apparently being taken by the DfE. The curriculum review, the constituent parts of the English baccalaureate and the reduction of teacher training places in art and design all seem to point to a disastrous return to a narrow, rigid, traditional curriculum, which is simply not aligned to the wider growth agenda. We need the excellent joined-up design for schools project back and we need it all across the secondary curriculum.

I will be interested to hear what the Minister says in response to these specific concerns. However, I also hope that she might take back to the department, and to the Government more generally, a deeper point. Is not the logical conclusion of what we have heard tonight that we have to rethink what form of curriculum would ensure that many more of our young people enter the workforce with a problem-solving approach, the capacity to work collaboratively and an inter- disciplinary capability? Is a key component of future policy not the need to make design, in its widest definition, central to how we educate people for the workplace? As the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, said, it is common for those in business—and indeed in government—to see design as largely concerned with aesthetic attributes such as style and appearance. While these are important considerations, the arguments in the report persuade me that they are only a small part of what a total design approach could deliver for UK plc.

In the recent past, when we have debated the economy or the need for growth, we have grown used to hearing it bruited about that the UK’s record of scientific invention and the great strength of its creative industries—product design, architecture, fashion, media, games software, entertainment and advertising—would equip us well enough for the future. However, as my noble friend Lady Kingsmill said, the uncomfortable truth is that, with a few very honourable exceptions, we have not been good enough at carrying these capabilities through into consistently world-beating products and services. Indeed, other countries have often made far more use of our ideas and grown their economies on the back of our inventiveness and creativity.

My point is that if we are to rebalance our economy and generate the growth we need, UK companies and industries will need to produce innovative, high-quality, high value-added products and services, and bring them quickly and effectively to market, so does the Minister agree with me that the Design Commission’s report, and the debate this evening, make it essential that we put design at the heart of our industrial policy?

20:10

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Baroness Wilcox)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, on securing this important debate on design. I have enjoyed it thoroughly. What follows is what my Government say, and I am delighted to repeat it, but it is lovely for me to hear the expertise expressed on all sides of the House, including from former education Ministers. That is my personal comment. As regards the “Paris model” on the other side of the Chamber, I am terribly grateful that I am wearing my suit made for me by Lachasse 24 years ago. It is still going strong. Good design definitely counts.

The noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, has done sterling work in support of design over many years as co-chair of the Associate Parliamentary Design and Innovation Group and, more recently, through her part in bringing together a group of parliamentarians, designers and academics to establish the Design Commission, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Bichard. The report of the commission’s inquiry into design education rightly highlights the strength of the UK’s design sector.

I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Kingsmill, that the UK has a global reputation as a leader in creativity and design. We have a world-class design sector, the largest in Europe with more than 230,000 designers. It is a thriving sector that makes a significant contribution to our economic wealth. Research indicates that £15 billion was spent on UK design in 2009.

While we welcome the commission’s contribution to this important subject, we must dispute the suggestion that the Government do not fully appreciate design as a lever for growth. Successive Governments have supported design for more than 60 years since the Churchill Government set up the Council of Industrial Design in 1944 to aid post-war economic recovery. We do not see it as “whimsical”, which I heard Sir Paul Smith say was the view of design that many people have when they should be looking at the beautiful design of an engine or water bottle. He actually said that design “isn’t all red hair and bare chests” when he was interviewed this morning about the relocation of the Design Museum.

Design can be a source of competitive advantage and can help organisations transform their performance from business product innovation—as we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Cotter—to the commercialisation of science and the delivery of public services. That is why design forms an integral part of the Government’s plans for innovation and growth. It features strongly in our Innovation and Research Strategy for Growth published in December. For example, we announced that the capability to use design for commercialising technology would be integrated within the specialist expertise and support that the Catapult centres will provide to business. These are the Technology Strategy Board’s network of elite technology and innovation centres.

The strategy also reaffirms the Government’s support for the Design Council's activities to connect both the private and public sectors to design. I am sure my opposition colleagues will be pleased to hear that we continue to fund activities which were supported by the previous Administration. For example, we announced an increase in funding for Designing Demand, a mentoring programme to build greater design capability and understanding among small and medium-sized enterprises. This will enable more businesses to benefit from the programme.

My right honourable friend David Willetts, the Minister for Universities and Science, is a strong advocate of design. He is keen to see design embedded across government and wants to build on the momentum generated from design’s inclusion in the Innovation and Research Strategy. The noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, said that the Government should have a national design strategy. The Government are committed to design and their strategy for design. This was outlined in the Innovation and Research Strategy for Growth, published in December.

A number of points have been raised about design teaching. The Design Commission’s report notes that higher education centres of excellence need protecting and funding. The Higher Education Funding Council for England has invested in multidisciplinary centres of excellence where universities come forward with proposals. We agree with the commission that the onus for developing such activities is very much on the institution.

Design skills are fundamental for innovation and will carry the United Kingdom into future prosperity. The design education system in this country is a national asset—from the time creative subjects are given on the school timetable to the diversity and quality of courses at university.

Let me first address the points raised by the noble Baroness and others about design teaching in schools. The aim of the Government’s current review of the national curriculum is to focus it on the essential knowledge that all children should learn, and to give schools greater freedom to adapt their wider curricula to meet the needs of pupils. We wholeheartedly agree that design is an important subject and that it can inspire young people to pursue careers in industry. In that way, it plays a key role in supporting economic growth in this country. The teaching of design undoubtedly equips young people with practical knowledge and a broad range of skills in preparation for the workplace.

My noble friend Lord Baker talked of practical skills in schools. The design and technology curriculum is currently compulsory to key stage 3, age 14. Pupils must participate in systems and controls, resistant materials and then either food or textiles. We are currently reviewing the whole national curriculum.

The noble Lord, Lord Cotter, asked about careers advice for young people—an issue that I know is important to this House, given that I recently answered an Oral Question on this topic. Local authorities are currently transferring careers advice to independent organisations so that young people can obtain independent careers advice, and this process is ongoing.

We have not yet reached the stage of deciding whether design should remain part of the national curriculum and, if so, at which key stages. The call for evidence generated significant interest across the sector. On 19 December, the Department for Education published a set of documents summarising the findings of the review to date. This included a report on design and technology. These reports set out the scale of the challenge that we face in designing a world-class national curriculum. We will ensure that these issues are fully debated before any final decisions are taken. Teachers, academics, parents, business leaders and others will have an opportunity to contribute. For this reason, my right honourable friend Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Education, also announced on 19 December that the timetable for the review would be revised. New programmes of study for all subjects in the national curriculum will be introduced together from 2014.

We intend to announce our proposals about the shape of the new national curriculum, including the position of design, later this year. A full public consultation will be undertaken before final decisions are made. I am sure all stakeholders with an interest in the future of design education will welcome the opportunity this brings to engage further.

The Design Commission’s report has been a useful contribution to the debate and the Government will reflect carefully on the points raised by your Lordships this evening. I thank again the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, for her debate.

20:19

Sitting suspended.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Tuesday 24th January 2012 Lords Chamber

Committee (5th Day) (Continued)

20:29

Clause 11 : Determinations

Amendments 96 to 98 not moved.

Clause 11 agreed.

Amendment 99

Moved by

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

99: After Clause 11, insert the following new Clause—
“Funding
(1) The Lord Chancellor may make funding available for the obtaining of civil legal services on matters not included in Schedule 1 where it appears to the Lord Chancellor that the provision of such services would promote efficiency, the saving of costs or the attainment of justice.
(2) The Lord Chancellor may make arrangements for such purposes by—
(a) funding public bodies, law centres, citizens advice bureaux and not-for-profit advice and support agencies to facilitate the provision of such services; and (b) supporting the delivery of such services through the provision of grant in aid to providers of civil legal services, including any consortia or partnership arrangements with public bodies, into which they may choose to enter.”

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

My Lords, this is an extremely important amendment, which I hope that the Government will accept. The other side of the coin when legal aid is taken away, particularly in the area of social welfare law, is that there must be some provision for advice to people who require it in that field—in others as well, but certainly for those concerned with welfare benefits and the like.

In this country, a huge amount of work is done, a lot on a voluntary basis, by citizens advice bureaux, law centres and other not-for-profit advice and support agencies. I want an assurance from the Minister that those organisations will fill the gap, that they will be properly funded and put on a secure footing for the foreseeable future to provide the advice that is clearly needed in those areas. Consequently, my Amendment 99 is to give the Lord Chancellor power to,

“make funding available for the obtaining of civil legal services on matters not included in Schedule 1 where it appears to the Lord Chancellor that the provision of such services would promote efficiency, the saving of costs or the attainment of justice”.

What I have specifically in mind is the funding of law centres, citizens advice bureaux and not-for-profit advice and support agencies.

I know that the Government have committed some £20 million for the support of Citizens Advice, but I understand that to be on a one-off basis. At the same time, we receive information that the Cabinet Office is working on schemes to provide some permanent support in this area. Citizens Advice has two sides: a side dealing with general matters, normally done by volunteers, and a side dealing with specialist matters. The specialist advice in Citizens Advice comes from generally qualified lawyers who are funded precisely by the legal aid that is about to be withdrawn if Schedule 1 to the Bill finally goes through. That is the focus. What will happen? Will people be left to stumble around in this incredibly complex area of social welfare law? Will they have any guidance and help when it comes to the new provisions that are being introduced under the Welfare Reform Bill, or what? That is what I want to hear from the Minister tonight. I beg to move.

[Baroness Mallalieu]

My Lords, I support this amendment as far as it goes. We are all worried about who will fund organisations such as law centres, which at present are largely reliant on legal aid. Clearly, many of them will go under if there is not some alternative form of funding. What troubles me about the amendment in its present form is that there is absolutely no break on the way in which this Lord Chancellor—or a future Lord Chancellor—may choose to hand out the money. I should like some requirement on him to consult and some way of knowing that a distant Lord Chancellor—of course, not the present one—could not operate for reasons of political expediency, or simply on a whim to withdraw funding from an organisation which, for example, might be involved in action against the Government. Although I welcome the amendment in its present form, I think that it needs more added to it.

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I support the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford. It addresses a question that is crucial for the success of legal aid advice at local level. The question is how the Ministry of Justice can deliver its legal aid budget cuts of £130 million out of £250 million while still delivering an effective system of support for legal aid. After a lot of thought, I have concluded that a centralised system of contract procurement is not likely to work well. It would mean high overheads and poor flexibility at a time when a significant number of third-sector providers will be forced to close because of lack of finance, with the consequence of problems that could be sorted out early not being sorted out, and a greater cost to the public purse.

We should note that the Legal Services Commission has very high costs. It spends £120 million on administration. After the cuts, with the new director of legal aid casework, the amount spent on administration is likely still to be around £120 million. That figure is very high. Of course, it includes criminal legal aid, but this has barely been cut at all. However, at local level, the budget cuts will be very significant. They will be in exactly the places that require a seamless service that will enable clients with problems that cut across agencies to benefit from integrated support.

I have a potential solution. I am grateful to Citizens Advice for its suggestion of how we might solve the problem. Could the Legal Services Commission, or its successor body, be moved from centre stage? Could, say, £20 million be reallocated from its administrative budget—which would thereby be reduced to £80 million —to front-line funding based on local legal advice partnerships that would map local advice needs, share back-office services and be based on clear professional standards? There would have to be—

[Lord Beecham]

Do I take it that the noble Lord is referring to £20 million a year rather than a one-off payment of £20 million?

[Lord Shipley]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Beecham. I do mean £20 million a year from the recurrent cost to provide for those local partnerships. There would have to be a co-ordinating charity, but that should be possible.

In a short debate on citizens advice bureaux on 8 December, I talked around this point and said that there was capacity at a local level to help the Government to solve the problem. Of course, all of this would be in the spirit of localism. The Government have just enacted the Localism Bill. The Localism Act has as its basic principle the principle that far more should be devolved from the centre to local areas.

The first part of the amendment simply gives the Lord Chancellor discretion to permit transfers from the legal aid budget to other funding streams for the provision of advice on issues to which Schedule 1 does not apply. The second part facilitates a cheaper delivery model based on local partnerships. On a practical level, it is important to note that it would be a waste of resources if legal aid clients could not receive holistic advice. There could also be many cases at the margins of situations covered by Schedule 1, and we should note the Legal Services Commission's response to the Green Paper, which highlighted the problem of boundary issues and warned that,

“the administration costs of considering such cases could erode the revenue savings that the Ministry of Justice has committed itself to”.

I think this suggests that we ought to do some further work between consideration in Committee and Report and that we should not lose the opportunity to engage with finding a solution to this problem. I hope that the Minister will understand that in moving this amendment, we are trying to be helpful. There are suggestions that this approach, or one like it, could work very well. I hope that in his reply the Minister will say that he is willing to engage in further discussions prior to Report.

[Lord Goldsmith]

My Lords, in an earlier debate in today’s Committee I indicated my involvement in helping agencies that provide social welfare advice and legal help to consumers, employees and others. I am therefore very sympathetic to what lies behind this amendment, which is a recognition that the Bill as it stands will remove an important lifeline for individuals by removing legal aid from the agencies. As I said in that earlier debate, many people outside Parliament may not appreciate that legal aid is not just about giving fees to chaps in wigs; it is also about supporting agencies that provide a lot of excellent advice on a very good value basis. They are able to do that because some of the work they do is supported by legal aid. They are very good value for money and produce tremendous results.

My noble friend Lord Bach has already referred to the very interesting research produced by the Legal Action Group on the provision of social welfare law advice in London. That research points out not only what will happen in terms of dramatically reduced services but how that will cost the state more. As I think the report says, it is penny wise and pound foolish to go down this route. That has been debated before. I am very sympathetic to doing something that will provide funds for these agencies. That is not the only thing that needs to be done to the Bill, but it is an important point—and my noble friend Lady Mallalieu and the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, have made it as well. The problem is whether this amendment will do that. That is where I am concerned. I agree with the identification of the problem, but I am very worried that this is not the solution.

It is not the solution for the reasons that both of the previous speakers referred to. The amendment provides discretion to the Lord Chancellor, because that is what it says, but it goes further than that, as I will describe. The amendment would give the Lord Chancellor the ability to make funding available in circumstances that are completely ill defined. In other words, the criteria are entirely for him to determine. I will come back to what I mean by the word “him” in a moment. It reminds me that in the days before the law of equity and common law were separated, the Lord Chancellor had his own jurisdiction in legal cases. He ran the rules of equity. The criticism—I think the most famous criticism came from the jurist John Selden—was that because it was discretionary and the rules were not rigid or written down in the way that the common law was, you never knew what you were going to get. It was said that it was as if the measure of a foot in equity would be as long, as short or as indifferent as the Lord Chancellor’s foot. That is what worries me about this amendment. It leaves it to the person who has the discretion to determine whether to make any funding available, and if so, how much.

At one stage, I was going to describe this as the “Lord Chancellor’s foot amendment”, but it is worse than that because it is not actually the Lord Chancellor’s foot I am worried about. The present Lord Chancellor is—as no doubt all future Lord Chancellors will be—a man of generosity and kindness who understands the problems of the world and is desperate to help his fellow man. The problem is that Lord Chancellors do not get their money themselves; they get it from another person with the word Chancellor in his name. So I am going to describe this as the “Chancellor’s foot amendment”. I would love to see this amendment come back with tougher criteria and more obligations imposed. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, suggested that more work be done on what is needed. I do not know whether £20 million a year is the right number for this area—I would be surprised if it is—but it is worth doing that work. This report deals only with London, which in my experience is the best served place.

I would like to see more work done on this, but the amendment will not work as it stands. I am really concerned that this will be put forward as a sop to those of us who would like to see specific areas of welfare law brought back into scope, and we will be told, “Don’t worry, because when this amendment goes through, all these cases can be dealt with through a decision to provide funding”. If this amendment said, “and the Lord Chancellor will have X hundred million pounds a year for that purpose and he will exercise that discretion in those cases”, I might be more favourably disposed towards it, but at the moment I am worried that this will simply be a sop. I too look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say about it, but as it stands it identifies the problem but not the solution.

20:45

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords, I have my name to this amendment. I confess that I have been impressed by the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith.

It surely is beyond argument that with the cuts in scope to legal aid this Bill will bring about, the need for the citizens advice bureaux and the law centres will be infinitely greater than it already is. If we were to have this discussion in the other place, there would scarcely be an MP who would not automatically come to the aid of the citizens advice bureaux in particular, because they rely on them: they send people from their surgeries to their local citizens advice bureau to get the advice that the MP cannot give.

The numbers of cases dealt with by the CABs in a year are measured not in tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands but in millions. I urge my noble friend to have regard to this simple reality. To put it in scale, I think there are 500 full-time CABs, with something like a further 3,000 CABs sharing premises in libraries and council offices and so on; so 3,500 of them, and probably 60 or 70 law centres now, a declining number; but they are on the front line of citizen advice. They are indispensable in the truest sense of the word.

The fact that so much of what they do is done by voluntary assistance—and very many local solicitors are volunteer CAB workers—only multiplies the value of what they do financially. The £20 million that the Government gave a couple of months ago to tide over the CABs in a funding crunch must be the best value £20 million the Government have spent on anything in the last year. I repeat, the multiplier effect of the voluntary effort put in to CABs makes every pound of support given of much greater value.

I do not think it needs labouring, it is just that I feel so passionately about this. I declare an interest that I was for 20 years legal adviser to the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux, and my firm still does work for them. I have seen for myself from the inside and as an occasional volunteer the absolutely essential front-line work that they do. Frankly, to think of this country without the CABs is to contemplate a nightmare. My noble friend the Minister may say, “That is an exaggeration; there is no chance of that”. Well, put us at ease by allowing this amendment. Indeed, take it away and contemplate putting some obligation alongside the discretion.

I also know that Citizens Advice has to plan its finances on a solid future framework. It cannot hope each year that somehow the money will tip up. It needs certainty of supply, as do the independent law centres. We all understand the financial rigours under which the coalition Government are having to work but I cannot urge more strongly the fact that the task of the CABs and the law centres, in the straitened circumstances which will prevail after the cuts in legal aid brought in by this Bill, will be ever more urgent in an ever complicating society.

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, until now, I have been happy to support every amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, but I have to say that on this one I find that I cannot give my support. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, that we are incredibly lucky in this jurisdiction to have a not-for-profit sector, as well as those solicitors who still do this work, which provides at very little cost a terrific service for people who otherwise would not get access to justice. They do so largely due to the good works of a lot of Lord Chancellors in the past but not least the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, who is not in his place now but was here earlier, who, in 1995 I believe, made it possible for law centres and CABs to receive legal aid and thus give the kind of advice that changes lives. I agree absolutely with what the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, has said. If that should disappear, it would be one of the scandals of the first few years of this century.

If this amendment is intended somehow as an acceptable substitute for taking whole areas of legal aid, particularly social welfare law, out of scope, it has the potential be dangerous and short-sighted. I do not doubt for one second the good intentions and good faith of those who have put forward this amendment. But why do I say that? It seems to me to play entirely into the hands of a Government. It could be this Government or a future Government. I agree absolutely with my noble and learned friend Lord Goldsmith on this. Most likely the Lord Chancellor would be at liberty to pay whatever grant he wanted or no grant at all because the power is entirely discretionary as the amendment is drafted.

We know that there are a multitude of not-for-profit advice centres. Well over 500 CABs, 60 law centres, and hundreds of small, sometimes specialist, centres deal with the type of issues with which Part 1 is concerned. Some receive legal aid and some do not. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, that it is not a perfect system by a long way. Given his background, what he has to say about localism is of huge interest, which I know from being the Minister some time ago. But at least under the present system, the Legal Services Commission grants contracts for legal aid for a length of time and it is not the Lord Chancellor’s job to grant those contracts. It is not perfect by a very long way but the contracts are intended to cover the country. At present, those contracts are one step removed from a politician’s stroke of the pen. In my view, that is an important consideration.

Who will the Lord Chancellor fund? Of course, I am talking about a Lord Chancellor in the future. I am not talking about now. Will it be those he likes? Will it be those that are in his part of the country? The Lord Chancellor may be a Member of Parliament, as he is now. Will it be those who do not often sue the state or do not offend him or the Government? He could turn the tap off at any moment and the organisations would have no way of planning their present and their future. There would be no certainty.

One of the criticisms made by the not-for-profit organisations I certainly remember hearing as a Minister was, “Look, there is not enough continuity. We do not know about the future. How can we plan and become efficient organisations without knowing how long we will get contracts for?”. There may be not be enough continuity in the present system, but necessarily there would be no continuity under the system being mooted in this amendment. Frankly, it is an open invitation to a new Lord Chancellor, under pressure from the Chancellor of the Exchequer—and every Lord Chancellor I have ever heard of or spoken to has been under that pressure from the day he gets into office—just not to make the grants, and that will be it. The not-for-profit sector will collapse. I ask this question: if grants are the solution, where is the money coming from? If the money is there, why take social welfare law out of scope in the first place? Why not provide the rather limited, perhaps too limited, resources for social welfare law that are available at present?

Of course we are open to discussion and further debate about this, but what we want to happen is that those areas of the law—in particular, social welfare law, which it is suggested should be taken out of scope by the Bill—should not be taken out of scope; they should remain in scope. The system does not work badly; in fact, I would go so far as to say that it is working well. There is no need for this. If I was the Minister tonight, I would bite off the arm of the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, and accept this amendment saying, “Yes, I agree”. That is because, as it is presently drafted, I am afraid that it plays much too much into the Government’s hands.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)]

I am pondering whether to say, “If the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, is playing into the Government’s hands, it would be for the first time”, but I will not. Instead, I will simply say that we have taken a decision on the shape of this Bill which we have continued to explain. We have returned to a number of issues around that, and this amendment seeks to include a power within the Bill to fund the not-for-profit sector to do work that is outside the proposed scope of the civil legal aid scheme. I acknowledge that a number of noble Lords have concerns about the sustainability of the not-for-profit sector, and I will return to that later. However, to seek to include a provision within the Bill to fund the sector for work outside the proposed legal aid scheme is, in our view, unnecessary. Not-for-profit providers have been eligible to compete for legal aid contracts since 2000, and while the proposed changes set out in the Bill will impact on the type of cases they currently handle, future contracts for work that remains in scope will continue to provide opportunities for such organisations to bid to deliver legal aid services.

It is also unnecessary to provide for such specific powers in the Bill, as the Ministry of Justice can provide grants to organisations promoting Ministry of Justice objectives. For example, both the Ministry of Justice—

[Lord Goldsmith]

Is the Minister able to tell the Committee whether any analysis has been done to see which areas of law are currently used to fund not-for-profit agencies, but which are now going to be taken out of scope? At the moment a lot of housing work, employment and welfare law is done. If that all goes out of scope, how will the not-for-profit agencies get any of the contracts that the Minister is talking about?

21:00

[Lord McNally]

They will bid for them. It is as simple as that. They are in a market where they will be able to bid for this work.

[Lord Goldsmith]

If the work that they are doing is out of scope, how do they get a contract? I have obviously misunderstood something.

[Lord McNally]

They will not get a contract for work which is not within scope of the Bill. That is why we keep on going round in circles. As the noble Lord said, he wants to put this sector back into the scope of the Bill. We do not want to do that.

[Lord Goldsmith]

The Minister said that the answer for the not-for-profit agencies is that they can bid for contracts. If at the moment they are bidding largely for work relating to housing, welfare and employment—things that will go out of scope—what contracts will they bid for? My specific question was whether the Minister or his department had done an analysis so that we might see what percentage of the money that the agencies have up to now received would no longer be available because it would be for work which was out of scope.

[Lord McNally]

I will have to promise to write to the noble and learned Lord.

[Lord Bach]

The Government may not have done that analysis, but the Law Centres Federation and the CABs have. I do not have the precise figure in my head, but law centres would do about 70 per cent less work because of the matters that are taken out of scope. It would not be quite as much, of course, in the case of the CABs, but they would have a much reduced caseload which would make their existence in some cases doubtful. That work has been done by the agencies, but I agree with my noble and learned friend that the department should perhaps confirm those figures or come up with some new ones. The agencies are going to lose work.

[Lord McNally]

Of course they are going to lose work in the areas that are being taken out of scope. That is self-evident. I make no complaint about it, but we continually have brandished at us reports from organisations with, to put it bluntly, an interest in the issue. It can at least be examined thoroughly. Organisations which have been involved mainly in areas which are being taken out of scope will find that that work is no longer there, which will have an impact on some of them. However, they will still be free to bid for work which is within scope. We can go round that time and again.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

I know that my noble friend is trying to get into his speech but, en route, important issues come up, and one has a duty to the Committee to continue with them. Does he not appreciate—I do not think that he can—first, that local authorities, because of their financial stringencies, have withdrawn grants to law centres and CABs all around the country and, secondly, that, if the centres can no longer do the work that is taken out of scope, many if not most of them will simply shut their doors and go away? The consequence of that, my noble friend will, I am sure, recognise.

[Lord McNally]

Throughout the passage of this Bill, assertions are made about what is going to disappear and the nightmare of a country without CABs—to quote my noble friend. Unlike the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, I cannot airily, as he did in his intervention, say, “£20 million? That is not enough. Perhaps we should put another nought on the end”.

[Lord Goldsmith]

I did not say that; with respect, the Minister should listen. I said that I did not know whether £20 million was enough. That is something that I would like to hear from the Minister, either now or at a later stage of the Bill.

[Lord McNally]

Throughout the Bill, we have tried to restructure legal aid so as to deal with the most vulnerable in our society in a way which we think is fair. My noble friend Lord Phillips referred to the squeeze being put on CABs by local authorities. There have been squeezes on local authorities and on the Ministry of Justice. The country is having to readjust to a considerable degree to what is available for many good causes, and that is why this debate is reoccurring in Committee.

As I say, I recognise the general concern about the future of such funding. I hope I can reassure the House by making it clear that the Government value the services provided by the not-for-profit sector and are committed to ensuring that people continue to have access to good-quality free advice in their communities. That is why the Government have launched the advice services fund and a review of free advice services. The Government have set aside £20 million to support the not-for-profit sector. That is about the seventh time of announcement but, to provide clarity for the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, I say that it is still the same £20 million. This fund will provide immediate support for the not-for-profit advice service providers to deliver essential services in debt, welfare benefit, employment and housing advice. An announcement on the fund and review was made on 21 November by my honourable friend Nick Hurd MP, Minister for Civil Society, in the other place.

It is important to recognise that legal aid is only one of several funding streams that not-for-profit organisations receive and that the future sustainability of the sector is a cross-government issue which this Bill cannot be expected to solve on its own. Accordingly, alongside the advice services fund, the Cabinet Office is conducting a review into local advice provision, looking at the funding environment for these services, likely levels of demand and how government can play a positive role. The Cabinet Office will work with other departments that either fund advice services or whose activities have an impact on advice services, such as my department, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department for Communities and Local Government, and the Treasury.

The House may also be reassured to know that both the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister are taking a keen interest in these reviews. Stakeholder events with representatives from the sector, to gain their input into the review, have already been held by the Cabinet Office. I urge the House to await the conclusions of that review, which is expected in the spring. My officials are working closely with colleagues across government to support this important work. I hope this will reassure the Committee that I and my colleagues in government are united in our efforts to support the not-for-profit sector while it adapts to difficult changes in the funding landscape. I therefore urge the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in the debate and I accept all the criticisms that have been made as no doubt very well founded. In his reply, my noble and learned friend—

[Lord McNally]

I am not learned.

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

No—but you will be by the time I have finished.

In his reply my noble friend said that we must await the conclusions of the group that is looking into this matter, which has already taken advice, as I understand it, and carried out various consultation processes. I want to know when it is going to report. I have discovered that in government departments the spring can turn quickly into the summer. The Bill will be through this House by the middle of March and we would all be much happier if we were assured by that time that the future of the CABs, the law centres and so on is secured to give precisely the advice for which the grant was announced in November—for welfare, for employment and so on—as the noble Lord said.

I am anxious that the group should get a move on and that we should receive these reassurances so that we can be confident that the gap that will arise through the withdrawal of legal aid will, to a degree, be filled. I understand the position of the noble Lord, Lord Bach. He does not want anything to interfere with the general thrust that everything in social welfare law should go back under Part 1. Indeed, voices on my Benches have made exactly the same comments, including me. However, if that is not to happen we must be sure that there is a source of advice in these very important areas which will be available to the citizens of this country. At the moment, I ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 99 withdrawn.

Amendment 99A

Moved by

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

99A: After Clause 11, insert the following new Clause—
“Report reviewing claims for clinical negligence
(1) In discharging his functions under section 1(4) above, the Lord Chancellor shall have regard to the report of a review under this section.
(2) The Lord Chancellor must, before the end of the period of one year beginning with the day on which this Act is passed, appoint an independent person to review generally claims for clinical negligence and means of improving the modes, procedures and outcomes relating to the same.
(3) The review must address, in particular,
(a) the accessibility, cost, effectiveness, openness, fairness, proportionality and speediness of such claims, and(b) any other matters the Lord Chancellor considers appropriate.(4) After the person appointed under subsection (2) has completed the review, he or she must compile a report of conclusions.
(5) As part of their conclusions the reviewer may propose such voluntary scheme or schemes as he or she shall see fit.
(6) In this section “claims” shall mean claims and complaints made by patients receiving services provided in the United Kingdom and commissioned in England in respect of a liability in tort or contract owed in respect of personal injury or loss arising in connection with breach of a duty of care owed to any person in connection with the diagnosis of illness, or in the care or treatment of any patient of an NHS body, a primary care or independent provider.
(7) The Lord Chancellor must lay before Parliament a copy of the report compiled under subsection (4).”

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords, this amendment is in my name and those of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, and the noble Lord, Lord Faulks. Both much regret that they cannot be here to join the debate. The noble Lord, Lord Faulks, is a practising Queen’s Counsel who concentrates on work in the field of clinical negligence. The renown of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, needs no repetition.

Clinical negligence cases are perhaps as—or more—difficult and complex than any in the field of litigation. They tend to be extremely slow, expensive and to some extent unfair in the way that they unwind. The position under the Bill is that clinical negligence claims are taken out of scope, although the House will know that there is an amendment yet to be resolved which would keep the independent specialist or expert medical reports within scope. The importance of medical reports in clinical negligence claims cannot be exaggerated. Medical evidence is the vital linchpin around which such claims revolve. They establish whether there has been medical negligence and whether there is causation between the condition suffered by the would-be claimant and the event purportedly giving rise to it. Upon the expert medical report depends: first, whether a solicitor will take the case on a conditional fee agreement; secondly, the terms of the conditional fee agreement, because obviously if the solicitor does not like the sniff of the case he or she will maximise their benefit under the agreement; and, thirdly, the cost of insurance which is now almost an essential part of any clinical negligence claims because they are uniquely expensive. That, too, will depend of the expert report. Even with insurance, the cost implications of these claims are fearsome. Some may remember that in debates last week I referred to a case from south Wales referred to me by the NHS legal team there. A case taken under a CFA resulted in the claimant getting damages of £4,500 but the costs and expenses were over £98,000.

The point of this amendment is really to have a long, cool look at the whole of the clinical negligence scene to establish whether—and, if so, how—we might better conduct this vexatious class of claim. I will refer briefly to a 2003 report by the chief medical officer for England, the consultation document Making Amends, which drew particular attention to the slowness, complexity and cost of these claims. Sadly, I do not think that much has come of the Making Amends consultation.

In this field, the Welsh are streets are ahead of us. In 2002, the Welsh NHS report on alternative dispute resolution was produced. It led in 2005 to the setting up of a pilot project called the Speedy Resolution Scheme—again confined to clinical negligence claims. In 2006, the NHS Redress Act was past, which empowered the Welsh Assembly to set up its own redress regime. This was referred to—and still is—as “putting things right”, and was a root and branch review that led last year to the NHS Concerns, Complaints and Redress Arrangements Wales Regulations 2011, which is still in the process of unwinding. Another aspect of the regulations comes into effect in April. In between that, there were additional measures.

21:15

I mention this only to illustrate, in a way, just what a quagmire this area of legal claim is. The Welsh have grappled with it and the speedy resolution scheme is still running on. Swansea University has evaluated it and has a mixed report, with a good deal of compliments but a good deal of criticism as well. Those of us proposing the amendment thought that it would make a lot of sense to have a thoroughgoing independent review of all this so that the independent reviewer could come back to the Lord Chancellor and hence to Parliament with an assessment as to how,

“the accessibility, cost, effectiveness, openness, fairness, proportionality and speediness of”,

these clinical negligence claims may be improved. Then, of course, with the report in its hands, the Lord Chancellor, Parliament and the Department of Health would have the opportunity to draw on it and to produce something which might need legislation or might not. At any rate, we have taken a leaf out of the Charities Act 2006, which provides in Section 73 for a review. I have also incorporated into the amendment some of the wording of the Welsh legislation.

In brief, to finalise my remarks, I would like to think that my noble friend would welcome this initiative as potentially shedding a lot of badly needed expert light on a singularly vexed area of litigation, which could inure for the benefit of the NHS, of claimants and of everybody on this planet. I should just add that we have had discussions with AVMA, the specialist organisation that is involved with this type of claim. I beg to move.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, in principle I welcome the notion of a review and some of the provisions that are effected in the amendment clearly make sense. However, despite the most distinguished provenance of the amendment I am left in doubt as to some of the wording and/or implications of what is proposed.

To begin with, the only duty on the Lord Chancellor, apart from initiating the review, is to lay a report before Parliament. There is no obligation for him in any sense to implement the review or to make changes having regard to the review. One fears that such a report might meet the fate of the infamous Black report—or the famous Black report that was infamously treated—in 1980, which some Members of the Committee will recall was published just before a bank holiday and disappeared from view thereafter. In other words, all we are getting is a report.

Moreover, the report, although it talks about the procedures and costs of claims, apparently is not required to deal with the funding of such claims. It talks about the costs but does not direct the person appointed to carry out the review and to report or comment on funding mechanisms—as I read it. The noble Lord, Lord Phillips, may put me right when he replies. It is quite sensible to have a provision that the reviewer may propose a,

“voluntary scheme or schemes as he or she shall see fit”,

but I am not quite clear what is meant by “voluntary scheme”. Is it a voluntary scheme of advice, or of conducting cases?

Subsection (6) defines “claims” as meaning,

“claims and complaints made by patients receiving services provided in the United Kingdom and commissioned in England”.

I am not quite sure what that means. Is it a reference to the Welsh situation? Does it mean that a clinical commissioning group, or indeed that a claimant of the nature of a private patient seeking treatment in a hospital in another part of the United Kingdom, would be subject to review in this report even though a claim might arise outside the jurisdiction of the English courts? It certainly is not clear to me quite what is intended, so although I certainly support the principle I am not sure that what is being sought here in detail quite meets the aspirations of those who drafted the amendment—let alone being sufficient to secure the support of the Minister. He will no doubt tell us what he thinks shortly.

If this matter is going to be pursued, it really needs some further thought and elaboration. If it is brought back at Report, it might be better to do so in a clearer form and, in particular, not to create a situation in which all that is produced at the end of it is a report which can be kicked into touch.

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I would hope to persuade the Opposition not even to support the principle of this amendment, which says:

“The Lord Chancellor must, before the end of the period of one year beginning with the day on which this Act is passed, appoint an independent person to review generally claims for clinical negligence and means of improving the modes, procedures and outcomes relating to the same”.

We would prefer to stick to the process established by the previous Government, which put in place post-legislative scrutiny of Acts of Parliament. The aim is to complement the Government’s internal departmental scrutiny with parliamentary scrutiny, principally by committees of the House of Commons, to provide a reality check on new laws after three to five years.

As set out in the Cabinet Office guidance, these reviews normally take place within three to five years of Royal Assent. The responsible department must submit a memorandum to its departmental Select Committee, which will then decide whether it wishes to conduct a fuller post-legislative inquiry into the Act. Of course, the House will be free to debate the committee’s findings should it choose to conduct a review into the Act. In addition to this post-legislative scrutiny, the impact assessment for the specific policies in the Bill is accompanied by a post-implementation review plan. It is intended to review each policy between three and five years after the implementation date.

Noble Lords may also be aware that the Government have conducted a public consultation this year on how lower value cases should be dealt with more efficiently in the county courts. We are working closely with the National Health Service Litigation Authority to consider whether a lower value scheme similar to that which is currently operating for low-value road traffic accident cases would work for lower value clinical negligence cases. At the same time, we are actively considering the Government’s response to the consultation and will publish the response in the near future. In the light of these remarks, I hope that my noble friend will withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

Before my noble friend sits down, could I be perfectly clear about what he said at the start of his response? Is he saying that there will be a formal review of clinical negligence in the course of reviewing the whole of this Act, as it will become?

[Lord McNally]

Yes. I have been one of the strongest supporters of post-legislative scrutiny, and I am just putting it in place in terms of the Freedom of Information Act. The Justice Committee in another place has just taken from the Ministry of Justice a full assessment of how that Act has been working and will then take evidence. I would have thought it inconceivable that such post-legislative scrutiny would not examine the issues relating to clinical negligence.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

I apologise to the Committee that I was not able to be here at the beginning of this debate. In the Minister’s view, does the legislation as drafted provide the flexibility to enable the Lord Chancellor to respond constructively and effectively to such findings as a review might produce at a suitable interval?

[Lord McNally]

Yes. If it did not, presumably we would bring forward primary legislation to correct it, but that is the parliamentary process.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. I was going to say that I thanked the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, for what he said—I sort of do. I will not play legal games with him at this time of night, but if this is brought back I will certainly read carefully the points that he made.

As for the Minister’s reply, my sense is that the review that I am calling for in Amendment 99A is far more particular and focused than any review that would come forth under the general review of this legislation, not least because clinical negligence has only a very limited part to play in it. Further, the Bill deals with the scope of clinical negligence in terms of legal aid, not with the detailed functioning of clinical negligence litigation. I would like to read what the Minister has said and perhaps have a conversation with him before Report in order to see whether there is any point in persisting with the nub of this amendment. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 99A withdrawn.

Clause 12 : Advice and assistance for individuals in custody

Amendment 100

Moved by

[Lord Macdonald of River Glaven]

100: Clause 12, page 8, line 25, leave out from “premises” to end of line 14 on page 9

[Lord Macdonald of River Glaven]

My Lords, this amendment addresses Clause 12, which considers the important issue of criminal legal aid in the context of advice and assistance for individuals in police custody. The clause raises the spectre that some time in the future legal aid in police stations could be subject to some form of means testing. In other words, what is now an unfettered right, applied with ease, efficiency and, above all, speed, would no longer be routinely available, and where it was it might be subject to some as yet undersigned bureaucratic process.

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, if I may interrupt, this may ruin a few speeches but I think it will help if I say that the Government intend to table an amendment to Clause 12 on Report that will remove the power to introduce means testing for initial advice and assistance at the police station.

[Lord Macdonald of River Glaven]

My Lords, I have never achieved such remarkable success with so few words. In those circumstances, I shall withdraw my amendment. I thank my noble friend for what he has just said.

[Lord McNally]

I assure the House that it was my noble friend’s eloquence that produced that result.

[Lord Wigley]

Can I be clear that the proposals that the Government are bringing forward—I have an amendment in the Marshalled List that is almost identical to this one—will cover all the worries that have been built into the amendments today, and that they are not a superficial way of getting out of the debate today?

21:29

[Lord McNally]

How unworthy! The test of that will be what we bring back on Report, but this is not a way of dodging a debate tonight.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

I hesitate to interrupt my noble friend, but we are curtailing the debate and what he has said is very helpful. Can he assure the Committee that, in preparing an amendment, the Government have in mind the importance of the duty solicitor scheme and of there being a process of integrity in the police station, so that suspects do not choose to refuse to answer questions in interview because they are not properly represented? Can he also assure us that the Government will bear in mind the risks of evidence obtained in police stations being rejected by courts because of a failed and unfair procedure in those police stations? Those of us who started practice at the Bar would say to my noble friend that there were long periods in our early practice when we cross-examined police officers about what used to be called “verballing”. I am sure that my noble friend understands the expression. I hope that whatever amendment is introduced will ensure that we do not have to return to the bad old days before the enactment of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984.

[Lord Bach]

The Committee will be relived to hear that I will not be making the speech that I intended to make. I absolutely agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, has just said. I, too, started practising in those days. What happened, in effect, was that guilty men got off—that is the truth of the matter—because, after a while and some notorious cases, juries were not inclined to believe on the basis of confessions alone. The Conservative Government of the time deserve enormous credit for passing one of the greatest Acts of Parliament in criminal justice, the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, which has worked pretty well, as the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, was about to say before he was so rudely interrupted by the Minister.

[Lord Macdonald of River Glaven]

How did the Minister know what I was going to say? He is quite right. I said this at Second Reading. I agree with everything that has been said. The Minister has given a clear indication that the Government will withdraw the proposal that there should be some future means-testing. In those circumstances, the Government’s response is appropriate. Let us see what the amendment will be and, if necessary, come back on Report if it does not meet our objections. I hope it will.

[Lord Bach]

Of course I agree with that. The only phrase that worries me slightly is Clause 12(2):

“The Director must make a determination under this section having regard, in particular, to the interests of justice”.

I am not sure what that adds to what happens at present. That is the only point that I wanted to make. I thank the Minister for his attitude towards this clause.

[Lord Macdonald of River Glaven]

I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 100 withdrawn.

Amendments 101 to 102 not moved.

Clause 12 agreed.

Clause 13 agreed.

Clause 14 : Advice and assistance for criminal proceedings

Amendment 103

Moved by

[Lord Bach]

103: Clause 14, page 10, line 8, at end insert—
“( ) individuals who are involved in investigations which may lead to a caution or warning,”

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, this concerns a very simple point, or rather a short one—I am not entirely clear whether it is simple. I would be grateful for the Minister’s response to this.

Clause 14 is headed “Advice and assistance for criminal proceedings”. Subsection (1) refers to regulations providing,

“that prescribed advice and assistance is to be available under this Part to an individual described in subsection (2) if … prescribed conditions are met, and … the Director has determined that the individual qualifies for such advice and assistance”.

That is fine. Subsection (2) sets out in paragraphs (a), (b) and (c) three classes of individuals who will be entitled to this advice and assistance. My amendment would add a fourth class of,

“individuals who are involved in investigations which may lead to a caution or warning”,

as opposed to,

“individuals who are involved in investigations which may lead to criminal proceedings”.

I admit that it is a long time since I practised, but I understand that people who are cautioned are liable to have that caution recorded and for it to be on their record for a period of time. In those circumstances, would it be better for that class of person to be granted advice and assistance, as are the persons covered by paragraphs (a), (b) and (c)? I will not argue with the Government if there is a good reason for not including that class of person. I just want to hear why there is not a fourth class of person covering,

“individuals who are involved in investigations which may lead to a caution or warning”.

I beg to move.

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, as the noble Lord has said, Amendment 103 would allow the Lord Chancellor to provide specifically for criminal legal aid under Clause 14 to be available for individuals who are involved in investigations that may lead to a caution or warning.

Clause 14 creates a power to make regulations that prescribe what advice and assistance must be made available to individuals in connection with criminal proceedings if prescribed conditions are met and the director has determined that a person qualifies for such advice and assistance in accordance with the regulations. This largely reflects the provisions in Section 13 of the Access to Justice Act 1999. Advice and assistance for criminal proceedings is distinct from criminal legal aid provided under Clause 12 for individuals in custody.

Under the Access to Justice Act 1999, the Legal Services Commission has the discretion to decide what advice and assistance it considers it is appropriate to fund. Under the Bill, this discretion rests with the Lord Chancellor. In making a decision, the Lord Chancellor will take account of any legal obligations including the requirements of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Both sets of provisions leave the criteria for making a determination to secondary legislation.

The proposed amendment would allow the Lord Chancellor to make provisions that legal aid may be available for individuals who are involved in investigations that may lead to a caution or warning. We believe that it is unnecessary to add the suggested amendment as provision could already be made under Clause 14(2)(a). If an individual is involved in an investigation that may lead to a caution or warning, that individual must be involved in an investigation that may lead to criminal proceedings. Cautions and warnings are used, where it is appropriate to do so, to divert certain offenders from the criminal justice system as an alternative to instigating criminal proceedings. For an individual in custody at a police station, or other premises, legal aid will be provided under Clause 12. I therefore invite the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Bach]

I am happy to withdraw the amendment. I am most grateful to the noble Lord for his persuasive explanation. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 103 withdrawn.

Amendments 104 to 107 not moved.

Clause 14 agreed.

Clause 15 agreed.

Clause 16 : Qualifying for representation

Amendment 108

Moved by

[Lord Beecham]

108: Clause 16, page 12, line 20, leave out subsection (3)

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, this amendment refers to Clause 16, which sets out the principles on which qualification for representation for legal aid can be determined. This is basically a probing amendment. Subsection (3) states:

“The Lord Chancellor may by order amend subsection (2) by adding or varying a factor”,

to or of the five factors set out in subsection (2). I apprehend that the Minister will confirm that such an order will be subject to the affirmative procedure. Given that the qualifications for representation for criminal legal aid are at stake, it is particularly important that that should be the procedure. If that is the case, the Opposition will be entirely satisfied and the amendment will be withdrawn.

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, as the noble Lord said, the amendment would omit subsection (3) from Clause 16. This provides a power for the Lord Chancellor to use secondary legislation to add to or vary the list of factors in subsection (2). The Access to Justice Act also contains such a power at paragraph 5(3) of Schedule 3 to that Act. Any order made under Clause 16(3) would be subject to the affirmative procedure.

The factors in the interests of justice test broadly reflect the requirements of the European Convention on Human Rights, which, at Article 6(3)(c), provides expressly for a right for a person,

“to defend himself in person or through legal assistance of his own choosing or, if he has not sufficient means to pay for legal assistance, to be given it free when the interests of justice so require”.

We see no reason now to depart from the principle established in current primary legislation that it is appropriate to provide a power for the Lord Chancellor to use secondary legislation to add to or vary the list of factors in subsection (2). This allows for the flexibility to react to any developments in relation to factors relevant to the interests of justice requirement. As I have said and as the noble Lord asked, these would be subject to the affirmative procedure. I therefore urge the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Beecham]

I am most obliged to the Minister for that assurance. For future reference, it might be helpful in these cases if it were to be made clear in the Bill that the affirmative procedure would be used. It would save a little time. However, we have not spent much time on this and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 108 withdrawn.

Clause 16 agreed.

Clauses 17 to 19 agreed.

Clause 20 : Financial resources

Amendment 109

Moved by

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

109: Clause 20, page 15, line 8, at end insert—
“( ) For the purposes of subsection (1), “financial resources” shall include all the realisable property of the individual subject to a restraint order under section 41 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (restraint orders) and subsections (4) and (5) of that section are hereby repealed.”

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

My Lords, when we were dealing with the previous amendment concerning the voir dire, as it used to be known, my mind went to happier days in Hong Kong, where the voir dire was brought to its artistic zenith. Voir dires could go on for six weeks or months. We have avoided all that in this country ever since. I was also reminded that in those days in Hong Kong to take legal aid was, as far as criminals were concerned, rather infra dig. Normally, they were funded from the resources that were available to them. That is the real purpose of the amendment.

Clause 20 is concerned with determinations about an individual’s financial resources. A determination that a person qualifies for legal services cannot be made unless it is thought that the individual is eligible for the services. All that I am concerned to do is add in to those financial resources all the realisable property of the individual. However, as happens these days in this country, the realisable property of the individual is frequently subject to an order of the court that freezes those assets where they are.

Consequently, we have what I regard to be an absurd situation whereby legal aid is granted to people of huge means because their assets are frozen. They can be unfrozen by an application to the court so that school fees can be paid. They can also be unfrozen for the purposes of civil cases but not of criminal cases. I was discussing this with the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, yesterday, and she said, “I made orders all the time on applications in the Family Division for assets to be unfrozen so that legal fees could be repaid”. She was amazed to discover that that was impossible in criminal cases.

About 50 per cent of the criminal legal aid budget goes on 1 per cent of the cases, and it is in those 1 per cent where assets have been frozen. That is a great resource. As I understand it, the policy behind the refusal to permit those assets to be unfrozen is twofold. First, the Treasury thinks that it will get its hands on the assets at the end of the day, and therefore for them to be unfrozen to pay legal fees seems an unnecessary waste of what it will get in the end. Of course, it does not consider that it is funding the Ministry of Justice, which has to pay out the legal aid. My other thought is that that provides a route for the laundering of money by dishonest solicitors.

As to the first, the objection taken is quite unfounded. On the second issue, the question of—I have forgotten my train of thought for the moment.

21:45

[Lord Bach]

Solicitors.

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

Solicitors. It is perfectly possible for a solicitor to apply to the court, as happens in civil cases, with a cost schedule which indicates how much his costs will be and what reasonable rates he will charge, and for the judge to make an order to control the whole process to permit the release of funds to fund the criminal defence. To my mind, this is an area which the Government should seize on as reducing the burden of criminal legal aid. It is unlikely that all the assets of the individual will be recovered in an application under the Proceeds of Crime Act. Accordingly, the sooner that the Ministry of Justice gets its hands on the money—in the sense that it does not have to pay out legal aid—the better.

I hope that my noble friend will take the issue seriously and address my proposals. I beg to move.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

My Lords, I shall start by making a few comments about my professional experience and then look at the broader picture. In recent years, the bulk of the publicly funded work I have done at the Bar has been in very high-cost cases, as they are called—very large fraud cases. I have seen a procession of those cases in which substantial funds have been restrained and not used for the costs of the case. Confiscation proceedings have followed in those cases where there have been convictions. In some cases, they have been long drawn-out. The funds have rarely been confiscated in full.

In one case I can think of, the confiscation proceedings lasted two or three years and, in the end, the defendant was returned £30 million, I believe, because the wrong procedures had been used by the prosecution. In another case from my experience in recent years, a defendant who was later sentenced to nine and a half years’ imprisonment and made the subject of a confiscation order in excess of £130 million remained, throughout the period leading up to and during the trial and for a considerable time after—as far as his family was concerned—living in one of the finest apartments in central London, worth many millions of pounds. Nobody was able to lay a hand on any of it. By the time the confiscation proceedings were over, such a miasma of transactions existed that that substantial property was immune from any confiscation. There are current cases, about which colleagues have told me—and without referring to any of my own current cases—in which a similar picture may emerge. This is an issue on which the Bar Council, of which I am an elected member, as I said in an earlier sitting, has given a great deal of attention. I should say that on this subject at least it might be worth listening to the Bar Council. Senior members of the Bar act for the prosecution and defence in every one of these cases, bar a very few.

The intention of the Bar Council in proposing amendments, believe it or not, was to save legal aid funding and to create a situation in which people’s own money, subject, of course, to proper controls, was used to pay for their own defences. It would create a situation in which a defendant, who at present may be able to relax while public money is expended on abuse of process hearings, dismissal hearings, disclosure hearings, and all kinds of satellite proceedings, costing him nothing, may have to control the spending on his defence. It seems a very sound principle that the defendant who has resources should have some control over the spending on his or her defence.

Furthermore, restraint orders are on the increase, as the General Council of the Bar has pointed out to the Government. In 2009-10 the CPS made 1,549 restraint orders. That had increased to 1,641 by 2010-11. The estimated value of assets under restraint in 2010-11 was as much as £744 million, every penny of it being money available to be spent on criminal defence but not so spent. Any legal advice and representation in those cases is charged to the legal aid fund. These are cases which, on the latest available figures—from 2005—caused the expenditure of more than 50 per cent of Crown Court legal aid, although the cases amounted to only 1 per cent of the cases. The average cost per case for those cases in 2003-04 was £2.6 million, with the average trial lasting 67 working days. These are very big cases, which are being unnecessarily funded from public funds.

A defendant accused of serious fraud may, for example, have £1 million on deposit in a bank account, frozen under a restraint order. An order may be made for the funds to be unfrozen to pay his children’s private school fees. I was involved in a case recently in which exactly that happened. The defendant was unable to fund his own defence but he was able to fund his son’s school fees at one of the best public schools. My noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford has contrasted the criminal situation with the civil courts. He described the reaction of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, to what he had told her and she certainly represented the civil court position correctly.

The Government’s response to the Bar Council’s proposal, and that of some of your Lordships, has been to argue, at least so far, that the sums restrained need to be preserved in the hope that, at some point further down the line, a confiscation order may be obtained on conviction. In November 2011 several national newspapers ran stories on revelations that at the end of March 2011, the sum of money outstanding in purported confiscation orders was £1.26—wait for it—billion. That made the front page of the Sun. I suggest to my noble friend that the hope that some money might be recovered is no substitute for meeting the up-front costs of the defence via the legal aid bill.

When confiscation orders are made, they are not used to fund legal aid but are channelled to other government departments; they go into the general Exchequer pot. This does not reflect the strain placed on the legal aid budget by high-cost fraud cases. Therefore, this seems to be—if I may be forgiven a vernacular phrase—a complete no-brainer. It is a way of saving the legal aid fund—to use another such phrase—shedloads of money. I say to my noble friend: let us wake up and do it.

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, I must say, having heard those two speeches, that I would not want to be the Minister tonight. Having heard what was said and having read about this from the Bar Council and the Law Society, which both put in effective papers, I will say at once that I regret that in my time as Minister we did not spot this, because there is no question that we should have acted on it. The noble Lord can make as much fun of me as he likes, but it is no answer to the points that have been made. There are times during the passage of Bills when a Government behave totally irrationally. I speak from experience. There are all kinds of examples—not that many in my case, but some. I know that the noble Lord, Lord McNally—

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

Perhaps I could ask the noble Lord not to be so modest.

[Lord Bach]

I will do my best.

[Baroness O'Cathain]

Perhaps I could say to the Minister that all my life I have lived by the statement that a man or woman who does not make a mistake does not make anything.

[Lord Bach]

That is absolutely right. I am just asking the Minister not to make a mistake on this issue; he should learn from my experience. Perhaps things were not quite as bad as I made out, but we should have spotted this as it shines out. It is not as though very high-cost cases did not come across my desk; my goodness, they did all the time.

The Minister will know that the majority of legal aid is spent on criminal cases. Over the years—although it shifted a bit as we made an effort at least to maintain what was spent on certain types of civil legal aid—the balance has been wrong. Criminal legal aid has taken more than 50 per cent of the budget and civil legal aid has been allowed to decline over a number of years. However, enough is enough as far as that is concerned. I point out to the Minister that the amount of social welfare law that has been taken out of the scope of legal aid equates to around £60 million. I do not need to repeat the figures that were mentioned by both noble Lords who spoke in this debate. The £60 million is dwarfed by the amount that it would be possible for the Government to get if they made wealthy defendants pay their legal fees.

When faced with an obstacle such as this, Governments sometimes become totally irrational and stick to their line, which can be completely hopeless and can sometimes not make sense at all. Common sense loses out completely. “No-brainer” is exactly the right word. The Government are faced with having to find money; there is a lot of heartfelt opposition to the idea that social welfare law, for example, should be taken out of scope; and there is a great deal of doubt about whether doing so will save any money at all—which in my view is the clinching argument. Here is a chance for the Government to take advantage of a sensible step. They have the power to do it and will have our support if they do. I very much hope that the noble Lord will at least consider carefully the very powerful representations made tonight in Committee.

21:59

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, at this late hour this debate is taking on a confessional nature. There has also been a little bit of topsy-turvy. For a time, I was just sitting back while the noble Lord, Lord Bach, and his colleagues were rubbishing the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lord Thomas and his colleagues, and now I am going to defend the activities of the previous Government.

As has been explained, the amendment is intended to allow the restrained assets of those accused of criminal offences to be taken into account when granting legal aid and to allow legal expenses to be paid from a defendant’s restrained assets. Before the next debate, I must check on the noble Lord’s distinguished career in government as I am not sure whether he was responsible for the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. Was it on his watch?

[Lord Bach]

The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, advised me not to be too modest. No, I was not responsible.

[Lord McNally]

Nevertheless, the previous Government passed the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, which prevents restrained funds being released to a defendant for legal expenses in relation to the offences to which the restraint order relates. The Committee will be aware that assets recovered from the proceeds of crime are already applied to offset the overall costs to the public purse, although I note the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, about the success of confiscation orders. The noble Lord, Lord Thomas, will know that when he put this idea to me, it seemed very attractive with a little Robin Hood stuff about it. However, the reason that the previous Government took action through the Proceeds of Crime Act was that in their judgment there was a risk that individuals might recklessly dissipate assets through lavish spending on their defence in order to try to secure an acquittal at any cost. In 2002, the then Government decided that it was better to allow access to legal aid than to allow an individual to draw down restrained funds to pay for their defence. Restrained assets in these cases are suspected to be the proceeds of crime. They are not therefore legitimate money, and they should not be used to fund the costs of a person’s defence lawyers. First and foremost, the victims of crime ought to be compensated for their loss.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

Before my noble friend goes down this course, which is an accusation that defence lawyers are simply going to charge what they like and take as much as they want, will he read his own clause? Nobody is saying that defence lawyers should be able to say, “Okay, I’ll take £1,000 an hour for representing you”. It is all subject to regulation and to the kind of limitations that currently apply through the LSC. What the Minister is saying at the moment simply does not recognise what the amendment provides. Will he please answer the amendment?

[Lord McNally]

I think the noble Lord protests too much. I was explaining to him the motivations of the previous Government for bringing in the Proceeds of Crime Act.

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, I was the shadow Minister on the Proceeds of Crime Bill. I have rather a good memory, and I can say that the Minister is absolutely accurate in his comments about why the Government chose not to use the Proceeds of Crime Act as an opportunity for dealing with this issue.

[Lord Bach]

It is very good to have the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, joining the debate, but if that was the best defence that the previous Government could put up for that, it was really not satisfactory. I remind the Minister that that argument has been described as,

“fallacious, and easily remedied by the simple implementation of a cap on defence fees, careful supervision by the court and/or an assessment by the court taxing officers, who are familiar with assessing what constitutes ‘reasonable’ costs in such cases”.

If that was the argument put forward by my Government at that time, I say here and now that it was a fallacious argument and not one that the present Government should fall into the trap of adopting.

[Lord McNally]

As I said, we are in confessional mood tonight. The Government are currently considering a related proposition under which the value of restrained assets might be taken into consideration in the Crown Court means test. Until that proposition has been considered fully, we believe it premature to suggest an amendment to the Proceeds of Crime Act.

This has been an interesting debate. We have heard what the noble Lord, Lord Bach, said in apology for previous omissions by his own Government. As I say, we are looking at the value of restrained assets in the Crown Court, but at the moment we believe it premature to suggest an amendment to the Proceeds of Crime Act and I therefore ask my noble friend to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

The problem is that my noble friend the Minister has not explained why people are allowed recklessly to dissipate criminal assets in civil cases. Why do you have one rule for civil cases, when you can use what are described as criminal assets although they are not necessarily so, and another rule in criminal cases? What is happening at the moment is that defendants are recklessly dissipating legal aid. That is the point and that is why legal aid is so high in criminal cases—it is being recklessly dissipated. My noble friend Lord Carlile explained how it can be done: you can have application after application; you can have little trials within trials; you can have satellite litigation; and the case can run on and on for months.

In the old Stafford Assize Court, which possibly the noble Lord, Lord Bach, has visited—

[Lord Bach]

More than visited, I have appeared there.

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

Good. I have appeared there on a number of occasions too—not against the noble Lord, Lord Bach, I have to say. There is a plaque on the wall that commemorated what was then the longest jury trial in Britain. It was 23 days and they put a plaque up because it had lasted so long. Now 23 days is peanuts as far as any serious case is concerned. They go on for months and months: application after application; disclosure of this, disclosure of that, and so on; recklessly dissipating legal aid funding that could be available for social welfare law or for all the other things that have been excluded—

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

In his closing remarks, perhaps my noble friend would like to reflect upon what the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, said. In the last group of amendments there was some discussion of post-legislative scrutiny. It is now something like nine years since the Proceeds of Crime Act was passed and I am not aware of any post-legislative scrutiny on this issue. Might this not be the occasion for some creative post-legislative scrutiny?

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

I should hate to say who should be there in sackcloth and ashes, but clearly things went wrong and the reasons that were given by the Government of the day proved to be without foundation. The situation is simply a disgrace. The quicker the Government move to carry out this review that they are having in the Crown Court, the better.

I shall withdraw this amendment, but I can assure my noble friend the Minister that I shall be pounding on his door about it while this Bill is going through and, if nothing happens, thereafter.

Amendment 109 withdrawn.

Amendment 110

Moved by

[Lord Beecham]

110: Clause 20, page 15, line 24, leave out “, by telephone or by other prescribed means”

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, this is one of four amendments with which I hope to deal in pretty short order. It relates to the provisions in Clause 20 and the determination of financial resources for legal aid. Clause 20(6) provides for,

“determinations to be made and withdrawn in writing, by telephone or by other prescribed means”.

That is not very satisfactory because it does not leave a sufficient audit trail. In any event, verbal communication, and possibly online communication, may not be suitable in all cases given the variable capacity of people to manage telephonic or online communication. In particular, if an appeal is made to the magistrates’ court subsequent to a determination, it is necessary to have that audit trail. Hence, the amendment proposes that the communication should be in writing and not by telephonic or other electronic means. I beg to move.

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, concerns about the proposal to establish the community legal advice helpline as the mandatory single telephone gateway in four proposed areas of law were the subject of considerable debate in Committee on 20 December. Given that, and for the purpose of today’s debate, I will therefore address solely the specifics of this amendment as they relate to Clause 20.

Amendment 110 relates to the method by which determinations about financial eligibility for legal aid are made and withdrawn. It would require all determinations about financial eligibility to be made or withdrawn in writing to the person making the legal aid application. It would therefore stop determinations about financial eligibility being made or withdrawn by telephone, or by other prescribed means, thus of course affecting the proposed mandatory single telephone gateway. However, this amendment would go much further than just affecting the gateway. It would seriously affect the financial and operational viability of the provision of legal aid advice by telephone altogether.

In Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Bach, described existing telephone advice provision as “excellent” and,

“a fantastic channel for delivering advice”.—[Official Report, 20/12/11; col. 1759.]

This excellent service is provided through the community legal advice helpline. Currently included in this service is the making and withdrawing of determinations about financial eligibility by telephone.

Determinations about financial eligibility are currently made immediately upon receipt of a call by the community legal advice helpline. No suggestion has been made that the system has not operated effectively and efficiently. This would add considerable time, cost and complexity to the provision of civil legal aid services by telephone. It could delay in particular callers who are not financially eligible for legal aid but are provided with alternative sources of assistance. It could also delay those who are eligible for legal aid help receiving it, as staff and resources would be involved in completing and sending out notifications about eligibility.

Determinations are made after asking precisely the same questions of all callers as face-to-face legal aid providers would ask. Where a person is eligible, they will usually start to receive help on the same day. They do not have to wait perhaps a few days or more for an appointment before their eligibility can be assessed or before they can start to receive help to address their problem, as a person walking into a face-to-face provider’s office may have to do.

In addition, Clause 11(3)(h) means that individuals will have the reasons for the making of a determination explained to them. It will, however, not necessarily be in writing. The assessment of financial eligibility through the community legal advice helpline also filters out those who are not financially eligible for civil legal aid. This assists those individuals by allowing them to receive information about suitable alternative sources of assistance immediately after that assessment is made, enabling them to begin to take alternative action to address their problem promptly and with the minimum of delay.

The current community legal advice helpline is a well used route to access civil legal advice. It offers a high-quality service and works well—the noble Lord’s description of it as excellent is testament to that. The Government understand the concerns behind Amendment 110, but restricting or preventing the operation of the community legal advice helpline will not help those who are in most need to obtain legal aid advice services to help them resolve their problem. This amendment is not in their best interests and I urge the noble Lord to withdraw it.

22:15

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords, the Minister said that he would address the narrow parts of this amendment because of the debate that took place before Christmas on some of the broader issues. Before we move on, can he tell the Committee whether the Government have given further consideration to some of the aspects that were exercised at that time, particularly with regard to the need to make sure that disabled people do not miss out in this process?

[Lord McNally]

The answer I gave in our December debate was that we are looking at the points raised. We are in contact with representatives of disabled groups to ensure that the facilities that are available through the helpline will enable all aspects of disability to be dealt with in an effective way. I hope that that reassures the noble Lord.

[Lord Wigley]

If I understand it correctly, the Government are still looking at the representations being made in this area in order to make sure that disabled people do not miss out. Have I understood that correctly?

[Lord McNally]

Yes. As I said after that debate, we will continue to liaise with the disabled organisations to ensure that we are getting this right.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I regret to say that I do not find the Minister’s answer satisfactory. It is true that many people find the telephone advice line to be perfectly acceptable, but others do not. Telephone advice lines are not the best option for delivering advice to older people, those with language difficulties or those who do not understand English very well. However, this is not about advice; it is about the determination of financial eligibility, and there may be cause for people to appeal against decisions. It is difficult to do that on the basis of a telephonic communication. That is all this amendment requires. Although I beg leave to withdraw the amendment, I cannot say that the Minister has satisfied us about the difficulties which we envisage the proposal will create. It might be something that we have to return to.

Amendment 110 withdrawn.

Clause 20 agreed.

Clause 21 : Information about financial resources

Amendment 111

Moved by

[Lord Beecham]

111: Clause 21, page 17, line 15, after “individual” insert “or person”

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, we return again to affluent criminals in a slightly different context. This amendment refers to the definition of an individual about whom information is requested for the purposes of a determination about that individual’s financial resources. The Bill defines such an individual as an “individual”, which is helpful, and goes on to say,

“and any other individual whose financial resources are or may be relevant for the purposes of the determination”.

The problem is that this may not cover, for example, a limited company or possibly a trust effectively controlled by the individual whose financial circumstances are being investigated. The purpose of the amendment therefore is to extend the definition to ensure that any connected companies or trusts are included in the assessment. It may be that the noble Lord will want to take a further look at this, but we are seeking to ensure in a different context the kind of approach advocated by the noble Lords, Lord Carlile and Lord Thomas, in respect of cases—in admittedly slightly different circumstances—where there are means which ought to be brought into account. I beg to move.

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, Amendment 111 relates to Clause 21, which provides a gateway for the disclosure of certain information to the “relevant authority”, defined as the director of legal aid casework or other person prescribed by the Department for Work and Pensions, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and the equivalent Northern Ireland department. The information can only be requested by the relevant authority for the purpose of facilitating a determination about the individual’s financial resources for legal aid; that is, for the purpose of finding out whether they are financially eligible for legal aid. The categories of information that may be requested are listed in subsections (3) and (4) of Clause 21. Those categories refer to types of information in relation to a relevant individual. A “relevant individual” is defined in Clause 21(8) as meaning the individual seeking legal aid and any other individual whose financial resources are or may be relevant for the purposes of determining financial eligibility for legal aid.

We intend as at present to continue to require those applying for legal aid to disclose any company directorships, positions or shareholdings in companies and to provide detailed information about such companies. More generally, applicants are required to disclose whether they receive any support from a third party, including an individual company or trust. Funding may be refused if this information is not supplied. In relation to companies, it is also possible to conduct an additional search through Companies House. There are indeed circumstances in which such information may be relevant. The Bill includes at Clause 24 a power that will enable the Lord Chancellor by regulation to require or permit the resources of a person other than the client to be treated as the resources of the client. That is currently done under the existing financial regulations.

Regulation 11 allows the resources of a person who is, has been or is likely to be substantially maintaining the client to be treated as the resources of the client. Regulation 11 also allows the resources of another person that have been or are likely to be made available to the client to be treated as the resources of the client. Regulation 12 provides a power to take into account resources that the client has either transferred to another person, deprived themselves of, or converted into resources that would be disregarded for the purpose of reducing their resources. For the purposes of those regulations, “another person” can mean a company, partnership, body of trustees and any body of persons corporate or not corporate. The effect is to prevent applicants for legal aid avoiding a full assessment of their resources by, for example, transferring them into the name of a company.

I return to Clause 21. The information listed in subsections (3) and (4) is about individuals because it is basic information such as date of birth, national insurance number and employment status, which can be related only to an individual. However, the information listed in subsection (4), which can be requested from HMRC, includes information about whether a relevant individual is carrying on a business, trade or profession, as well as further information—for example, the name of the business and its address.

As I have said, those applying for legal aid will continue to be required to disclose any company directorships, positions or shareholdings in companies and to provide detailed information about any such company. It is therefore inappropriate and unnecessary to extend the definition of “relevant individual” to include companies and other legal persons. I hope that, with that explanation, the noble Lord will withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, the Minister has given a clear indication that the objectives of the amendment are likely to be met by the present operation of the system. In those circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 111 withdrawn.

Clause 21 agreed.

Clause 22 : Payment for services

Amendment 112

Moved by

[Lord Beecham]

112: Clause 22, page 17, line 31, leave out subsection (3)

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, the Bill provides for regulations to enable the Lord Chancellor to require a person who qualifies for legal aid to pay an amount exceeding the costs of the civil legal aid services provided. I confess to bewilderment, frankly, at the notion that, in these circumstances, a legally aided person should be obliged to pay an amount greater than the cost of the services—it is almost turning that aspect of legal aid into a profit-making concern. There is no rationale in the Bill for why that should be the case. Litigants do not ordinarily pay more than the assessed costs of a case unless they have incurred some kind of penalty in so doing. The only analogy, when we come to Part 2 of the Bill, is of a success fee having to be paid, effectively, by a litigant. However, in this clause it is not limited to a successful litigant; it simply allows for a prescribed amount in excess of the assessed costs of the civil legal aid services. I simply do not understand whence this derives.

The noble Lord, Lord Thomas, has tabled an amendment which questions the principle and provides for an element of discretion in these matters. However, the Minister has to explain, with respect, why it is that recipients of legal aid should be expected to pay more than the costs that they have incurred. I beg to move.

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

I thought there was a printer’s error here: that is why I inserted “not”. It is not a matter of principle; I could not imagine that the Government would require someone’s contribution to exceed the costs and put money into the hands of the Lord Chancellor. I do not see any reason for that and I await the explanation with interest.

[Lord McNally]

This had better be good. Amendments 112 and 113 would prevent anyone in receipt of civil legal aid being required to pay an amount for that legal aid which exceeds the amount of the legal aid itself. We intend to use the powers in subsection (3) to establish a supplementary legal aid scheme which will provide an additional source of funding to supplement the legal aid fund. As indicated in our response to the consultation on legal aid reform, under this scheme 25 per cent of damages obtained by successful legal-aided parties, other than damages for future care and loss, will be recovered by the legal aid fund. The supplementary legal aid scheme will apply to successful damages cases where the successful party is legal aided, including any out-of-scope cases which are funded through the exceptional funding scheme.

The provision at subsection (3) is not new. There is already an equivalent provision in Section 10(2)(c) of the Access to Justice Act 1999, which allows for the establishment of a supplementary legal aid scheme whereby a legal-aided person makes a payment exceeding the cost of the services received. The power has not been exercised to date but, as we have made clear, we intend to do so in the future, so it is important that the Bill retains the provision to enable this.

At a time when the public purse is constrained, the funds recouped by the supplementary legal aid scheme will help to put legal aid on a sustainable footing and therefore help support the funding of civil legal aid cases. Besides creating a valuable additional source of funding for legal aid, in setting up the supplementary legal aid scheme we are addressing the interrelationship between legal aid and the proposal for reform to the cost of civil litigation put forward by Lord Justice Jackson and reflected in Part 2.

We want to ensure that, so far as it is possible to do so, the recovery level of damages by the supplementary legal aid scheme is consistent with the Jackson reforms to ensure that conditional fee agreements are no less attractive than legal aid. We have therefore selected a recovery level of 25 per cent of all damages, other than those for future care and loss. This mirrors the maximum level of damages that a solicitor will be able to claim from a successful client under a conditional fee agreement in a personal injury case. Under the Jackson proposals, there will also be an increase of 10 per cent in non-pecuniary general damages such as damages for pain and suffering and loss of amenity in tort cases for all claimants. This will help claimants to pay their CFA success fee or supplementary legal aid scheme contribution.

With that explanation, I hope the noble Lord will agree to withdraw his amendment.

22:30

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

I will read what my noble friend said with great care. For 12 years, this power that he said was in the 1999 Act—introduced by a previous Government but never mind—was never used. My mind immediately flicked back to a case that I once had. I use legal language that lawyers will understand: I once had a case in which a young girl lost the skin from her leg in a motorcycle accident. All the skin was stripped off. Now the Government want her to pay for somebody else. She presumably gets general damages of £30,000. The Government would take a fair portion of that because she had the temerity to apply for whatever it is—legal aid. They then want to keep the extra for somebody else. That seems quite wrong in principle. I am not surprised that it is in the 1999 Act, though with the coalition Government in power I would expect an entirely different approach.

[Lord Bach]

It will be a different approach, as I understand it. Under the last Government, it was never put into effect. Under the coalition Government, it will be. That is the difference.

[Lord Beecham]

The Minister expects us to be grateful for this activation of a pretty redundant provision. I cannot say that we are and clearly the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, is not either. Of course, the noble Lord’s example would no longer apply because civil legal aid would not be available for the personal injury case to which he referred, but it would occur in other cases. In one of these exceptional cases or if, for example, there is a move on clinical negligence, a huge slice of not only general damages but also—as I understand the Minister—special damages accrued to the date of the hearing might be taken. In a clinical negligence claim, that is potentially a very substantial sum. The noble Lord, Lord Thomas, is absolutely right. Successful claimants are being asked here to substantially help underwrite the costs of the system. That is not something that successful claimants should be asked to do.

We will revert to this when we come to Part 2. It seems that the burden has shifted from losing parties, and in particular losing defendants, to successful defendants. The Minister refers to the fact as if it were common knowledge that this would be moved. Maybe I have missed something—and so has the noble Lord, Lord Thomas. Neither of us seems able to recall this proposal being ventilated in debates—not in this House or Committee, or generally as part of this process. I am certainly not happy with this. We may well revert to it on Report. If it activates a provision that was laid down in 1999, it should not be done. As my noble friend will confirm, I was critical from time to time of the previous Government’s policy, particularly in relation to criminal justice and criminal legal aid. Had I known about this aspect, I might have been critical at an earlier date—presumably with no effect, either. This is not something we can let pass.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

If this provision is activated, as the Minister told us that the Government intend it should be, would the likely effect be that damages awards were increased by the courts to ensure that claimants got appropriate damages and at the same time, unfortunately, to underwrite the requirement that part of the proceeds of damages should go to boost the funds of the Ministry of Justice?

[Lord Beecham]

Increasing general damages by 10 per cent does not compensate for the deduction of 25 per cent. It does not touch the matter of special damages other than the future loss, to which the Minister referred. The 10 per cent is pretty much a gesture in terms of the likely impact on clients. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment but we will certainly want to look at this again.

Amendment 112 withdrawn.

Amendment 113 not moved.

Amendment 113A had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.

Clause 22 agreed.

Clause 23 agreed.

Schedule 2 agreed.

Clause 24 : Charges on property in connection with civil legal services

Amendment 113B

Moved by

[Lord Beecham]

113B: Clause 24, page 19, line 18, leave out paragraph (b)

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, we are now at the end of Part 2—sorry, I mean Part 1. The Chief Whip was ecstatic at the thought that we might have reached the end of Part 2. As I am leading for the Opposition on Part 2, I would be ecstatic as well, but we are not there yet, and the House may not be so ecstatic when they hear me during our debate on Part 2.

This is another potential sting in the tail of Part 1, given that it looks to be another device to extract from beneficiaries of legal aid—or, more particularly, their advisers—money to help fund the general system. Of course, the practice of having a statutory charge on the assets recovered is long-standing and has been particularly relevant in matrimonial cases. It has been well understood that money was devoted to the cost to the legal aid fund incurred as part of the action. We are now apparently faced, in addition to the charge on property recovered, with a charge on costs paid by the other side in such a case. In reality, given that legal aid rates are significantly lower than the rates of inter partes costs, the defendant’s or unsuccessful litigant’s costs, the inter partes costs in effect help to subsidise the legal aid costs. There seems no logical reason to attach those costs—and it might well have a significant impact on providers, who in the swings and roundabouts that we will debate at some length when we discuss conditional fees under Part 2 actually help to subsidise the work.

Moreover, I understand that there has been no consultation about this aspect, which is a matter of some considerable concern. I do not know whether the Government have assessed the impact on the supply of legal aid providers—maybe they have. The suggestion from some in the profession is certainly that it would have a significant impact on the provision of legal services. I have heard today in a different or earlier context of a significant legal aid practice in the north-east that is seeking to drop a couple of its contracts because it is having to subsidise it from the rest of its work, and the practice cannot cope with that. This kind of provision will make that even more likely.

[Lord Wigley]

The noble Lord has referred to the fact that there could be some reduction in the number of suppliers who are available, and some may be withdrawing from this field. Does he have any indication of whether that is likely to be a blanket withdrawal or whether some sectors could be particularly badly hit by that, and that therefore those with cases dependent on those sectors might find themselves in a very difficult position?

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I am not in a position to say and I fear—perhaps I am wrong—that the Government are not in a position to say either, which is part of the point. There does not seem to have been a consultation. There may or may not have been an assessment of the impact, but there certainly ought to be. As I say, this provision has come out of left field, to quote the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, on an earlier point. It really ought not to be progressed until there is a proper assessment of its impact, in consultation with the profession.

In any event, it seems there is something of an issue of principle as to whether the statutory charge should apply not just to the property secured by legal aid but to costs paid by the opposite party, as a contribution towards the total costs incurred on behalf of a claimant. That seems to be a novel principle and one which, as I say, came out of the blue and certainly needs justification. On the face of it, it is difficult to see what the justification would be. I beg to move.

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I hope to end the evening on a reassuring note. We recognise that by virtue of the specific reference to costs, the language of Clause 24(1) is different from that in the equivalent provision at Section 10(7) of the Access to Justice Act 1999. However, we consider that costs are capable of falling within the existing provision on the statutory charge as,

“property recovered or preserved by”,

a legally aided person. In any event, I reassure noble Lords that Clause 24 does not represent a change of policy and will not result in any change to current practice.

The provisions in Clause 24 reflect existing practice by protecting the interests of the Legal Aid Fund in the same way that those interests are currently protected by the provisions of the Community Legal Service (Costs) Regulations 2000. For example, the provision in those regulations regarding payment of money due to a legally aided person relate to all such money, including any costs awarded. We therefore have no intention of altering the existing position that operates in cases where interparty cost orders are made and a claim is made against the Legal Aid Fund by a supplier. The current position in such cases will remain exactly the same when we implement the relevant provisions of this Bill.

Indeed, we recognise that market rate costs payments where interparty costs are ordered represent an important source of income for legal aid providers, and nothing in the Bill is intended to interfere with the present position in respect of such payments. Specifically, legal-aid-only costs will continue to be payable to providers where a supplier recovers interparty costs, to the same extent as at present. So the existing position, including in partial cost order cases, will remain. I also confirm that, in the specific context of interparty costs, we intend to exercise the power in Clause 24 of the Bill so that it is clear that legal-aid-only costs, including in partial cost order cases, remain payable to suppliers. This will make the position clearer than it is at present, given that the entitlement to payment for legal-aid-only costs currently appears only in the LSC contract. I hope that with those assurances, the noble Lord will withdraw this amendment.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, that certainly sounds extremely reassuring. I will read what the Minister has said with some care—not that I doubt him, of course—because on the face of it, if the clause does not change the previous legislation, I am not quite sure why we have it at all. However, accepting his assurances and good will, and in a spirit of relief at 10.45 pm, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 113B withdrawn.

Clause 24 agreed.

Clause 25 agreed.

Clause 26 : Choice of provider of services etc

Amendments 114 to 117 not moved.

Clause 26 agreed.

Clauses 27 to 30 agreed.

Schedule 3 agreed.

Clauses 31 to 37 agreed.

Schedule 4 agreed.

Clause 38 agreed.

Schedule 5 agreed.

Clause 39 agreed.

Schedule 6 agreed.

Clauses 40 to 42 agreed.

House resumed.

House adjourned at 10.46 pm.