Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Debate between Baroness Butler-Sloss and Lord Judd

Monday 5th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, frankly, it beggars belief that in an area which involves so much social distress and suffering the Government should rush into this legislation without having considered its impact and consequences. In terms of social irresponsibility, it is difficult to speak too strongly about that. Moreover, such a course of action makes absolute nonsense in terms of public expenditure. If we insist on cuts of this kind in a front line where we hope that things can be put right in time, expenditure on the cases concerned may considerably increase future pressure on the public purse, and more widely because of the contaminating effect of the cases concerned. This is short-sighted, counterproductive government of the worst order.

I have spent a great deal of my life working in the voluntary sector and I know that it is not just the voluntary organisations in the legal sector which will be affected, given that they will have tremendous additional burdens in the aftermath of the introduction of this measure, but that all the other voluntary organisations working in the front line of social action will have to pick up the pieces and the consequences of it. This is happening at the very time that the resources available to such organisations are diminishing and they are becoming frantic about how they will continue their work. This amendment is crucial. I cannot say how strongly I support my noble friend in having put it forward.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

My Lords, I hope that I may add a brief word about law centres and other advice centres. Taking legal aid away from a huge number of areas, particularly private family law, which concerns me, but also social welfare, will result in a great many people wondering what to do. Those are the people who currently go to law centres and other advice centres. I was talking to another Member of this House, who is not present in the Chamber, who told me that she used to work in a law centre as a non-lawyer and that the staff in that law centre spent their time dividing the wheat from the chaff and persuading people that they did not have a chance in court. I hope that the Minister, and particularly the Justice Secretary, understand the impact on courts and tribunals of people who do not have legal advice appearing before the various tribunals and clogging up the works. In 12 months’ or two years’ time there may be no assessment of whether the absence of law centres and other advice centres has exacerbated this problem to an enormous degree. However, I hope that the Government may realise at that stage that they need to provide more help. Good points have been made about areas in which I have experience.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Debate between Baroness Butler-Sloss and Lord Judd

Wednesday 18th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

I certainly saw the amendment as broad as that, and they may very well be able to do it through the employment tribunal. The great problem is that the employment tribunal will no longer have legal aid.

[Lord Judd]

I warmly commend the amendment, which I think will receive strong support from all parts of the House. The Bill in general is open to the awful charge of shifting the burden of our economic difficulties on to those who already in their lives face disproportionate difficulties and hardship. This is a particularly nasty and mean provision within that general strategy. These people are victims. They are not people who have just transgressed the law; they are victims of cruel, harsh and cynical treatment. If this country stands for anything, it must surely stand for ensuring that such people get some kind of justice after the experiences to which they have been exposed.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Baroness Butler-Sloss and Lord Judd

Tuesday 25th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, I am glad that the noble Lord took the opportunity to expand a little more on his strength of feeling, much of which I share, about our county. I think that the noble Lord will agree that the arguments that we have heard about London and Tyne and Wear strengthen the concern. They are a geographical reality, which emphasises the point that we are both making.

There is one other issue that needs serious consideration. We live in an insecure age and one of instability. It is important to have communities as the basis for security and stability. London is a huge multicultural gathering of people. It is possible in that situation for people to feel that they have no particular identity whatever. Surely in London of all places, with its great mass of people coming together, it is important that people can develop a sense of community and belonging, a sense of being able to discuss their anxieties with others and bring their representations to bear. For all those reasons, the issue of the constituency community base is fundamental. I simply cannot envisage how we can continue to have a representative democracy if we diminish the significance of the constituency.

My noble friend Lady Armstrong made a particularly powerful speech. I was a friend of her father and knew him well. She made a strong point about her father breaking his loyalty with his party because he felt so strongly about these matters. I would have only one argument with her. The other day, she talked about the link being broken. I ask her to consider that it is not a link but the fundamental cornerstone of a meaningful representative democracy. If we tamper with that, what road are we beginning to go down?

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

My Lords, this is the first time that I have spoken on the merits of the Bill and I want to be brief. I have two points to make. It is important that there is a degree of flexibility for certain communities. The community that I want to speak about is Newcastle. As a complete outsider to Newcastle, I sat there as a judge on numerous occasions and was the family division liaison judge for the area. There is absolutely no doubt that Newcastle is, among other parts of the country, one of the most obviously tightly knit communities. The river undoubtedly divides Newcastle from Gateshead. I could have replicated the lovely story told by the noble Lord, Lord Walton of Detchant, although without his accent, because I actually asked where Gateshead was and people were very unkeen to tell me.