Legal Aid

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Thursday 11th July 2013 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Deech]

That this House takes note of the effect of cuts in legal aid funding on the justice system in England and Wales.

[Baroness Deech]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a regulator of the Bar, but not its representative. My remarks today are informed much more by my decades as an academic lawyer in the home of lost causes and a law reformer rather than by any concerns about barristers’ income.

What we are debating today is the health of one of the great pillars of our democracy and liberty; namely, our legal system and the way citizens may benefit from or challenge laws which, as this House knows well, are painstakingly established for the good of the community. Access to justice is every bit as vital to our societal health as access to health services. In an ideal and affluent world, the need to fund legal services would be seen to be as compelling as the NHS and as deserving of ring-fencing, albeit with controls to prevent malicious or frivolous use. Our courts are like the NHS but with a far older pedigree. Our justice system has been the admiration of the world and a model for emerging democracies elsewhere. This is the country that litigants come to, if they can afford it, to seek justice that they feel is denied to them at home. This is the country that sends judges and barristers overseas to help new countries establish a decent legal system. I need hardly point out, in this week of Middle East chaos, how crucial and yet how fragile the rule of law can be.

The regulatory objectives for the legal profession, such as consumer protection, the rule of law and a strong, diverse and independent legal profession, are a fundamental pillar of the Legal Services Act 2007 and the basis upon which successful regulation of the legal profession is measured. My overarching concern with the proposals set out in the Ministry of Justice consultation, Transforming Legal Aid, is that they will undermine these objectives to such an extent that regulators and lawyers will not be able to mitigate the risks that arise as a result. Moreover, since the LSA is primary legislation, I consider that the Ministry of Justice should not pursue a policy which either is, or risks being, inconsistent with it without full parliamentary debate. I ask the Minister to provide that opportunity by giving the House the chance to debate primary or other legislation before such profound changes are made.

It is commendable that the Lord Chancellor has listened to the representations made to him so far and has recognised that choice has to remain in the allocation of a lawyer to a person accused of a crime. So far, so good, but in the complex area covered by the paper, much remains to be challenged.

Our system of judicial review, which it is proposed will be cut back, enables every citizen to challenge officialdom. Even when the chances of a successful JR are low, the shadow of it creates a climate in which officials know that they must stay within the legal boundaries and observe human rights; otherwise, they will be brought to book. Any diminution of this, no matter how severe our national financial situation, must be treated with the utmost seriousness. That is because everything we do, especially in this House, is built on our centuries-old acceptance of a functioning rule of law that is there to defend and protect all of us. JR is like knowing that the policeman is on the beat somewhere—if only.

The recent peddling in the media of the notion of greedy lawyers and litigants drunk on public money obscures a fundamental principle of our system. I have heard the Minister characterise the professionals I regulate as “fat cats”. The reality is the perception that government can use cuts in legal aid to reinforce the application of unpopular policies by choking off challenge and redress. How are people going to be able to challenge medical negligence, housing problems and treatment in prison? The silence that will fall as the proposals are implemented will allow future Governments to say that problematic policies have in fact succeeded because they were not challenged—it will have become impossible to challenge them.

Of course the Government need to save money. Here we are talking about £220 million a year, although some say that the sum does not take account of recent falls in the outlay on legal aid. This sum pales when one thinks of, say, expenditure of taxpayers’ money on council credit cards and failed NHS IT systems, or Apple and Vodafone not paying tax. Shave a little off HS2, and we would have it, although the profession has in fact come up with other ways of saving money that would render unnecessary the Ministry of Justice proposals. It is not helpful to compare our legal aid expenditure with that of other countries because they have inquisitorial systems whereby the work equivalent to that carried out by our barristers is done by officials before the court hearing. Those costs have to be on the state balance sheet somewhere. They could be cut by putting more of the legwork of an offence trial on to other organs of the state. They could be cut by reducing the outflow of new criminal offences from the legislature. They could be cut by removing some children’s cases from the criminal system and shifting them elsewhere. The organisation Justice has calculated that releasing around 6,500 prisoners from custody every year would make up the necessary savings in the justice system. We need to take a holistic view of expenditure. We need to know whether the ministry has calculated the additional costs that would be incurred if its proposals were to be implemented, quite apart from the broader balance of social benefit and detriment. I am not convinced that the deep calculations, allowing for the slowing down of the legal system and more failed cases and appeals, have been carried out or revealed. The knock-on effects may well wipe out the savings.

Others will speak about children and mental health, but I hope that the Minister will bring forward a proper impact assessment of what the cuts will really save and what they will not save. There is a clear risk to the most vulnerable and even the middle class in society. A threshold of £37,000 per household is unsubtle and will lead to defendants not having equality of arms when representing themselves against the police and a barrister acting for the Crown on the other side. Nor is there provision in the proposals for vulnerable defendants who simply cannot cope on their own. What of the impact of cross-examination on his alleged victims by an accused acting in person, about which we read so much in the media? Prisoners are to lose legal aid in relation to what happens in prison. The consultation is possibly over-optimistic in stating that the prisons complaints system can replace legally aided advice for prisoners. I have heard estimates that the complaints system is as expensive, if not more so, as using a solicitor.

Women have been especially hard hit by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act, known in the trade as LASPO, which commenced the restrictions in legal aid. This is the second bite of the cherry. The impact of that first Act has not yet been observed, although we know that there has been a 27% increase in disputed cases concerning children. Social welfare law and family law have become largely ineligible for aid. Some 57% of those affected are women, who bring 73% of the education cases and, a few years ago, formed 62% of the applicants for family legal aid. It pains me to say it, but women may be less able to represent themselves than men and lawyers in general. In sum, the interests of the public could be damaged in that there may not be competent representation, and the criminal justice system may fail to convict the guilty and acquit the innocent.

The big money saver, according to the consultation, will be the introduction of price-competitive tendering. Giving out contracts based on cost alone removes any incentive on the providers to exceed the minimum standards of service. Going for the cheapest ignores the reality that defence lawyers have to work with the individuals they represent; they have to work at weekends and be ready to deal, by definition, with the weakest members of society and cope with their wider problems—rather like the NHS, which we have just debated. Tendering for this legal work cannot be an accurate or exact measure because the length and complexity of cases are unknown. Currently, lawyers in the local community have experience and reputations that are known to the local police and courts. Mergers of small firms may destroy that, along with the availability of specialist skills, for example, in human trafficking or war crimes which are not to be found in the large new corporate pile-them-high and sell-them-cheap providers. The supermarkets and haulage companies who will hold themselves out to do this are unlikely to send the appropriate cases to barristers, thereby reducing the calibre of advocacy and future judicial material. Once they have secured the work and closed down the local firms, they will of course put up their prices.

I am particularly concerned about the tapered fee. We are all innocent until proven guilty and have the right to plead innocence and face trial. That is not inefficient; it is the rule of law. There must be no influences brought on a decision to plead guilty, such as a higher fee for the adviser or the inability of a solicitor to conduct a trial if the client were to plead innocent. The client, even now, should be inquiring of his or her representative as to whether that representative has any interest in an early guilty plea.

It is irrational to propose, as the MoJ has done, to reduce fees on a daily basis if the trial is a long one. The number of witnesses may be necessary, the jury may take time, and the legal arguments and cross-examination may be complex. Let us imagine a health system in which the longer the operation takes, the less the surgeon will be paid. We should either have fee cuts of 17%, as proposed, or PCT interference in the market. We do not need both. If there is to be a 17% cut in fees, firms should be left to work out how they will manage. If there is PCT, the price should be allowed to be settled that way.

What about the barristers whom I regulate? Criminal lawyers earn a great deal less than MPs and have to bear their own expenses. The Bar has worked hard to improve diversity but there are now only 400 pupillages a year, of which about 19% go to black and ethnic-minority pupils. I fear that the profession will become exclusively the domain of white, middle-class, self-financing advocates because young people will have no assurance of even a modest legally-aided income as they set out at the Bar. I do not see how they can survive with the education debts they are chalking up these days, not to mention the cost of qualifying as a lawyer. No wonder social mobility is less than it used to be. I do not wish to read any more exhortations from diversity tsars to increase the number of young people from underprivileged backgrounds in the legal profession. The Government want universities to lower the entrance requirements to this end, but they may be making it impossible to attract poor young people to the legal profession.

I was sorry to read that the Lord Chancellor commented to the Justice Select Committee that the Bar has not engaged with the Government in contemplating the changes that need to be made. On the contrary, the Bar is putting forward its own suggestions. It will be ready, I am sure, to help in delivering efficiencies through what are known as alternative business structures. It would be ready by now, but is being held back from getting them off the ground by the excessive red tape and overregulation that is built into the Legal Services Act 2007.

I hope the House will agree that there ought to be primary legislation for an issue of such constitutional magnitude to ensure that whatever changes are proposed after consultation will receive the scrutiny typical of this House. The proposed changes are of the order of those achieved in the LASPO statute and deserve as much attention. Even the judiciary, which is normally reticent in such political situations, has criticised the proposals. I am convinced that the protection of the profession and of the public that is enshrined in Section 1 of the Legal Services Act will be undermined by the proposals of the Ministry of Justice as they stand. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Deech]

My Lords, I have the impression that there is no time left save for me to thank all noble Lords and all noble and learned Lords who have joined in from different perspectives. They have been almost unanimous in encouraging the Government: first; to make sure that there is primary legislation; secondly, to undertake a real impact assessment; and thirdly, to take a holistic view of the costs of the legal system in order to make cuts where they are most needed.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord McNally, for listening. I remind him that the Bar could certainly move faster were there not so much red tape and duplication in the Legal Services Act 2007, but I am sure that it will do its best. I look forward to further proposals from the Government to rescue this most important pillar of our democratic society.

Motion agreed.

Alternative Business Structures

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, if they are established with the sole purpose of frustrating the will of Parliament, they will break the law. I will certainly take up my noble friend’s suggestion and talk to the Legal Services Board and the Solicitors Regulation Authority. We have had experience before of putting a law in place and some clever person trying to get around it, but we will take a close look and if they are trying to get around it, we will stop it.

[Baroness Deech]

Does the Minister agree that referral fees are a bad thing in all areas of the law, not just personal injury? They mean that professionals buy in services that they would not otherwise have and the consumer is deprived of choice. Will the Minister lend his support to the regulators, who are trying hard to maintain a broad ban on referral fees? I declare an interest as a regulator of the Bar.

Legal Aid

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Monday 3rd June 2013 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Deech]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what consideration they have given to the impact of cuts in legal aid on access to justice.

[Baroness Deech]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. I declare an interest as a regulator of the Bar, but not its representative.

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

My Lords, these matters were assessed as part of the impact assessments which were published alongside the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, and our current consultation on further reforms to legal aid, Transforming Legal Aid: Delivering a More Credible and Efficient System.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Deech]

Does the Minister acknowledge that it is widely regarded that the Ministry’s own impact assessment on that consultation paper does not adequately address the threat to the vulnerable and to minorities? Has he calculated the extra costs to the justice system of the longer trials and appeals which will inevitably result from inadequate representation, inexperienced advocates and self-representing litigants? Does he agree that the delays and miscarriages of justice that are likely to result will more than swallow up all the estimated savings?

[Lord McNally]

No, my Lords. The noble Baroness puts forward a worst-case scenario in almost every aspect—one which I do not recognise.

Crime and Courts Bill [HL]

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Tuesday 4th December 2012 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Deech]

108AA: Before Clause 21, insert the following new Clause—
“Appeals relating to regulation of the Bar
(1) Section 44 of the Senior Courts Act 1981 (extraordinary functions of High Court judges) ceases to have the effect of conferring jurisdiction on judges of the High Court sitting as Visitors to the Inns of Court.
(2) The General Council of the Bar, an Inn of Court, or two or more Inns of Court acting collectively in any manner, may confer a right of appeal to the High Court in respect of a matter relating to—
(a) regulation of barristers,(b) regulation of other persons regulated by the person conferring the right,(c) qualifications or training of barristers or persons wishing to become barristers, or(d) admission to an Inn of Court or call to the Bar.(3) An Inn of Court may confer a right of appeal to the High Court in respect of—
(a) a dispute between the Inn and a member of the Inn, or(b) a dispute between members of the Inn;and in this subsection any reference to a member of an Inn includes a reference to a person wishing to become a member of that Inn. (4) A decision of the High Court on an appeal under this section is final.
(5) Subsection (4) does not apply to a decision disbarring a person.
(6) The High Court may make such order as it thinks fit on an appeal under this section.
(7) A right conferred under subsection (2) or (3) may be removed by the person who conferred it; and a right conferred under subsection (2) by two or more Inns of Court acting collectively may, so far as relating to any one of the Inns concerned, be removed by that Inn.

[Baroness Deech]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments 108AA and 122AA.

In brief, these amendments seeks to transfer the jurisdiction for appeals by barristers—or in some cases the Bar Standards Board—against certain disciplinary matters from the visitors to the Inns of Court to the High Court. The transfer of the visitors’ jurisdiction is something that the senior judiciary and the Bar Standards Board have been working towards for a number of years. We welcome an opportunity to get this into the law. I trust that the Government will accept these amendments.

The background is that judges have long exercised an appellate jurisdiction in relation to the regulation of barristers. Since 1873, judges of the High Court have been exercising this function as part of their so-called extraordinary functions in their capacity as visitors to the Inns of Court. In exercising this jurisdiction, the law being applied is derived from the constitution of the General Council of the Bar and the Inns of Court to which all barristers subscribe.

For some time, the Bar Standards Board has been in discussions with the judiciary about transferring the jurisdiction formally to the High Court. The current system is anachronistic and there is general agreement that it should be updated. As these appeals are already heard by High Court judges, the main impact of the change would be to enable these cases to be dealt with in the usual manner via the normal list in the Administrative Court. This is consistent with the disciplinary arrangements for solicitors and would save time and administrative burden for the courts service.

The clause was previously included in the draft Civil Law Reform Bill in the previous Parliament, but it was unable to be proceeded with for lack of time. This is why I hope the Government will now accept it. I beg to move.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, as the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, has explained this new clause abolishes the jurisdiction for High Court judges to sit as visitors to the Inns of Court and confers on the Bar Council and the Inns of Court the power to confer rights of appeal to the High Court in relation to the matters that were covered by the visitors’ jurisdiction.

The Government agree with the noble Baroness that the practice of High Court judges sitting as visitors to the Inns of Court is inappropriate. The new clause does not itself abolish appeals to visitors or automatically create a right of appeal to the High Court; it is for the Bar Council, the Inns of Court and their regulatory bodies to determine any new arrangements in this respect. However, once the clause is commenced, the practice of High Court judges sitting as visitors in exercise of their extraordinary functions as judges would cease. This is achieved by repealing Section 44 of the Senior Courts Act 1981 in so far as it confers jurisdiction on High Court judges to sit as visitors to the Inns of Court and enabling instead a right of appeal to be conferred to the High Court for barristers and those wishing to become barristers.

The role of judges as visitors is long-standing but somewhat opaque. Repealing the current jurisdiction and conferring express powers to create rights of appeal in respect of the relevant decisions is preferable because it promotes clarity and certainty, which are rightly the aims of modern law.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, has proposed, the power to confer rights of appeal to the High Court would be available in relation to all matters in respect of which the visitors currently have jurisdiction. Under the current regulatory arrangements of the Bar Council, the visitors’ jurisdiction includes disciplinary decisions of the Council of the Inns of Court and decisions taken by the Bar Council’s Qualifications Committee. It would also include disputes between Inns and their members, or those wishing to become members, in recognition that historically the visitors’ jurisdiction extended to appeals from all decisions relating to the conduct of an Inn’s affairs. Abolishing the role of judges sitting as visitors is supported by the Lord Chief Justice, the Bar Standards Board, the General Council of the Bar and the Inns of Court. Enabling appeal to the High Court instead will improve administrative efficiency and transparency, and at the same time make the appeal arrangements for barristers more consistent with those for solicitors. I am therefore grateful to the noble Baroness for bringing this matter before the House and the Government are happy to support the amendment.

Inheritance (Cohabitants) Bill [HL]

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Friday 19th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Deech]

My Lords, I speak to express the strongest opposition to the passage of a Bill that, in a nutshell, will mean a further disinheritance of the children of the many marriages in this country that have ended in divorce, or who were born into unmarried and later broken relationships. It would also, if enacted, amount to an intrusion into private informal relationships—one might even say a denial of the human rights of privacy and respect for family life. There will be no avoiding the long reach of the law and lawyers, even for those who have chosen to live in a way that suits them but not the frameworks of the system. The Bill would transfer wealth from the children of the deceased to his or her cohabiting partner

In its report on intestacy in 2011, the Law Commission recognised the controversial nature of this proposal, which is why it separated it from the rest of its recommendations on intestacy in a separate Bill. It said that its proposal to change the law to give preference to cohabitants’ survivors recognised the vulnerability, intimacy and interdependence of the deceased’s relationships and the impact of bereavement on the partner. But what about the vulnerability and interdependence of the deceased’s surviving children, and the impact of bereavement on them? If enacted, the Bill would simply reverse the burden of challenge on intestacy away from the cohabitant—which is where it is now—on to the family. Cohabiting partners of the deceased already have a way to seek provision from the estate on intestacy, or from a will, under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975. The Act’s terms were relaxed in recent legislation. The Law Reform (Succession) Act 1995 enables a cohabitant of two years’ standing to make a claim without the need to prove dependency, which had been a former requirement. The judges who responded to the Law Commission consultation on intestacy in 2009 pointed out that in such circumstances the matter is better settled by judicial discretion, in rearranging the estate to accommodate the cohabitant if necessary, than by a fixed share which takes most of it away from the children.

Under the existing law, most such claims by cohabitants versus family settle before hearing. Now that there is an official family law arbitration service, claims need not cost as much as they do in court. It is notorious that intestacy claims can be so bitterly litigated that they eat up the disputed assets and the lawyers are the only beneficiaries. In Scots law, the Family Law (Scotland) Act 2006 does not take this Bill’s approach. The cohabitant’s claims against the deceased’s estate are a matter of discretion, with an upper limit of what a spouse would have received. In doing the calculations in Scotland, the court can take into account the pension of the deceased that may well have been paid to the cohabitant because the deceased hereto can nominate her. In this nation too, the pension can be nominated in favour of the cohabitant and the tenancy will probably automatically pass to her on death; so will the house, if in joint tenancy. The cohabitant might be married or living with someone else too, but that is no bar to a claim. We are not talking of utter deprivation.

To summarise the reasons for opposing this Bill—in addition to children’s rights and human rights arguments—the existing judicial family provision regime is the most appropriate way to decide these issues. It is quite possible that the deceased person did not want his cohabitant to inherit; there will be increased litigation by the blood family against a claimant cohabitant; and many people who know the law want their autonomy, as I will show shortly. Those who do not should be made aware of the situation. There is no more unpleasant and protracted litigation than that between a first wife and children on one side, and on the other the second partner of the deceased man. Although the case of Sherrington—which I know about because the deceased was a friend of mine—was about marriage not cohabitation, the deceased, Richard Sherrington, left everything to his second wife of a short marriage and nothing to his first wife and three adult children. The litigation went on for six years and cost nearly £1 million. It involved minute descriptions of the relationship with the second wife. This would happen in cases more often, and similarly unpleasantly, were this Bill to become law, when of necessity there would be disputes about the duration and nature of the cohabiting relationship.

The Bill is particularly insensitive at this time when there is much consideration of same-sex marriage. If these proposals were to go ahead, we would have a society containing separate regimes for heterosexual and, maybe in future, same-sex marriage, civil partnerships and cohabitation, and family members living together, all with different rights and duties. We need a complete, unified appraisal of all such relationships and no more piecemeal tinkering with legal rights deriving from different forms of sexual relationships that attract attention at any time. The Bill provides that if two people live together for five years, or two years with their child still with them, the surviving cohabitant should take the spousal share of the estate of the intestate cohabitant, provided he was not married to someone else or in a civil partnership. Under the current law that sum is £250,000, with the rest of the estate divided between the partner and the children. If there are no children, then the figure would be £450,000. Since the estates of most of those who do not make wills is smaller than this, in effect the cohabitant survivor would take everything. It is not clear from the Bill whether the exemption from inheritance tax that applies to the married would also apply here.

More than half the population do not have a will. Those who are in possession of significant sums are much more likely to make one than those who do not. So if passed this Bill would in general affect the less well-off. Of the married population, 45% make a will, but only 17% of cohabitants; presumably because they have no belief in any legal consequences of their living styles, whereas the married do. Moreover, cohabitants are more likely to be young, have fewer assets and be less settled. The median age for making a will is 69 for men, 73 for women. In response to the Law Commission’s consultation on cohabitants and intestacy, on which this Bill is based, 40 out of 79 respondents clearly opposed reform. That is hardly an overwhelming consensus in favour of reform. Those respondents who were in favour were in the main the organisations that have a professional interest in this topic, mostly lawyers: Resolution, the Chancery Bar Association, district judges, the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners, the Law Society, the Family Law Bar Association, the Family Justice Council and the Official Solicitor. Those who were opposed to the proposals were the judges of the Family Division and the Chancery Division, and individuals. The Law Commission seemed to weight more heavily the responses that favoured regulation.

In another survey, by Williams, Potter and Douglas, it was discovered that younger respondents were less likely to favour cohabitants’ shares than the older. This may be because the young are more likely to cohabit—it peaks in the 20s—and are more aware of the transient, experimental nature of many such relationships. The Law Commission’s main reasoning was that people who live together are ignorant of what their rights might be. This is not an argument that prevails elsewhere in the law; nor does it appreciate quite how well informed the public are in their way, as I shall show. The Law Commission’s consultation paper on this topic did not pay sufficient attention to the crucial question of the deceased’s children by another woman, as distinct from whether he had no children or children by the cohabitant. The proposal that someone who has not committed himself or herself by marriage, or even by making a will, should leave all his or her property to the cohabitant, not his children, makes no sense.

The reported cases of cohabitants’ claims are about childless estates. At most, a life interest in a small share for the cohabitant is all that could be regarded as fair in the circumstances, so that if necessary the cohabitant avoids being in need but does not disinherit the children on her death. The National Centre for Social Research, whose 2010 survey was relied on by the Law Commission, put to people scenarios about intestacy to check their response. It posited a woman dying intestate, which is rather different from the situation most of us think about when we are concerned with this. Even so, less than half the surveyed people would give all of the estate, or priority, to the partner, even after a 25-year cohabitation. With a baby on the scene in the hypothetical short partnership, less than half would give all or priority to the partner, and the majority would give all or some to the baby. In a long childless union of, say, 10 years, only 53% of those surveyed preferred the partner over the deceased’s parents as beneficiaries. There was a strong feeling that the children should not be disinherited and that the partner should get something, but not the lion’s share. As I have said, a life interest in a maximum of 25% would be fair enough.

However, one should not just listen to the professional organisations, as the Law Commission did, without listening to ordinary members of the public who are not being fed possibly leading questions. Whenever I have lectured on this, I have received hundreds of letters opposing more law for cohabitants, but I will not personalise this. I shall quote from the many blogs that have appeared in the Guardian—not the Telegraph:

“I have no intention of allowing my daughter’s inheritance to be diluted by my new or former partner”.

“This is a ridiculous idea. One of the main points of marriage is to show commitment”.

“I knew I didn’t want to marry her, but we stayed and lived together for over a year, so sometimes you live together but aren’t sure”.

“If these proposals are accepted, then the state will effectively marry people whether they like it or not, after a certain number of years. I strongly object to this. The decision for a person to marry should be for them to make and them alone. If accepted, this proposal will effectively strip individuals of the right to live no-strings-attached”.

“I am not for it because some people who cohabit do not believe at all in marriage and all it entails. Cohabitation is a trial run. I am sick to the back teeth about these calls for cohabitee rights. Why should I be denied the right to live with a partner on my own terms because for some bizarre reason some people who wish to live as married do so without actually marrying or setting out their affairs to protect themselves? This proposal is illiberal, complicated and impractical ... it is important to have a clear distinction between marriage and cohabitation so that people know where they are”.

“When is the state going to recognise that cohabiting couples are adults who choose to live their lives that way precisely because they don’t wish busybodies—either religious or state sponsored—poking into their personal affairs”.

“The idea of being treated like a married person when I’m not is just ghastly”.

“This is a very regressive suggestion. It’s also classic nanny state. Want a share in your partner’s money, then ask for it (by marriage)”.

“I was really hoping that this stupid proposal for a new law would go away”.

“The blood sucking lawyers would love the opportunity to leech off a group of people who have either arranged things to suit themselves thus not needing the assistance of the legal profession or simply do not want the law butting into their lives … who in their right mind will live with anybody again unless very committed to the relationship … (they will usually get married anyway)”.

“Totally, totally illogical. It’s marriage by default, folks! Can’t you people see that?”

“People have a legal right to be single and that is that”.

“Extending quasi marital rights to those who have not chosen to enter into a legally binding agreement is not fair at all”.

I could go on because I have pages of these quotes, but to spare noble Lords, the final quote is:

“They move the goalposts so that despite not being married, you can still get your wallet nicked”.

So it is the principled issue of legal recognition of cohabitation that the public is looking at. I will not go into the details of how the definition of cohabitation is dealt with in this Bill, save to make the following general comments on the difficulty of recognising it. In the absence of any legal ceremony or document, how are all those who get involved in probate and death, the family and the officials, to know that there was a cohabitation? Even being together for five years does not necessarily signal permanent commitment of the sort that would attract the legal effect of extending beyond the grave for all time to come at the expense of the family. The fact of sharing a household for two years with a child does not obviously mean that the survivor should get the first £250,000. Who is to know whether the relationship was a sexual one, for even marriages are not always sexually defined? If one person shares a home with another who dies, what is to stop the first falsely claiming that their relationship was intimate?

One has to question, as I have done before, why property transfer applies only to couples in what was presumably a sexual relationship that has ended, and not sisters. Once marriage is abandoned as the clear blue line for legal responsibilities, then logically all relationships—sibling, incestuous, polygamous or whatever—should be treated equally. It is hard to see why it is the sexual element that elevates certain relationships for financial reward, even though they are no more or less co-dependent than others. The result, if this Bill is passed, might be forensic investigation to see whether the relationship that is alleged did actually exist, and more pressure on resources at the time of death, adding to the administrative difficulties that exist at that time anyway; and maybe it would give rise to a new breed of serial cohabitants who stay for one year and 51 weeks if there is a child or four years and 51 weeks if not.

At the time of death, it has been predicted by probate genealogists in relation to this Bill’s effects that much time would have to be expended on searching electoral rolls, tenancy agreements, utility bills and interviewing family members to establish the situation if there might be a cohabitant survivor. It will be hard to know if the person who steps forward to obtain the grant of representation is really the cohabitant, for it would be their task to obtain the grant, not the family members or children. There could be delays of years in settling some estates while this goes on and pressure to settle even where there is no real claim.

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness. Has she looked at jurisdictions in other countries where there is similar legislation that works perfectly well?

[Baroness Deech]

My Lords, family law in this country does not always follow other countries; sometimes we learn from them. Indeed, sometimes I wish we had followed Scotland when it comes to dividing up proceeds on divorce, but that is another issue.

What about the unregistered Muslim marriage with several surviving legally unmarried “wives”—are they to share?

We come down to the most fundamental issues in death and life—human rights and care for one’s children. We have heard the views of some members of the public. There is a human right to live privately that risks being breached here. Some older divorced and widowed people want companionship, rather than to live on their own, but do not marry again precisely in order to preserve their estate for the children of an earlier marriage. Private adult choices should be respected. There should be no imposition of legal regulation on those who actively choose not to marry and who refrain from making a will, maybe in the belief that their existing family would thereby be protected. If there is hardship for a surviving cohabitant, we have judicial discretion under existing law to remedy it without this shift away from the family that the Bill would bring about. Many say that marriage is just a piece of paper, a lifestyle no superior to cohabitation, and that cohabitants are as committed as any others. So why do those same people want to attach heavy legal significance to cohabitation, mimicking marriage?

I have great sympathy for the younger generation today, who face tuition fees and mortgage burdens vastly heavier than was the case for my age group. If any generation needs care on the death of a father or grandfather it is the young, not the peer group. To deprive them of their inheritance could make all the difference to accessing higher education or buying a house. The cohabitant who might be entitled to the estate under this Bill could well be married to someone else at the time of the deceased’s death, or enter a future marriage or relationship carrying with her the inheritance, gone forever from the deceased’s blood family, to her new family. I see no reason to downgrade the family members in favour of a partner when the deceased did not actively choose to do so. It is not fair to remove maintenance from the children when we have a high divorce rate and widespread failure by men to support their children in their lifetimes. The children who stand to be disinherited by the provisions of this Bill may be the same ones whose support was neglected by their father during his lifetime. The children will have to incur the expense of challenging the intestacy provision rather than the partner: that is the real import of this Bill.

In their responses to the Law Commission, judges said that the child should take priority. Children have no choice in the matter, but the cohabitant survivor may move on to another life and other methods of support. I urge the House to express its principled arguments against this Bill.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Tuesday 20th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, there has been widespread condemnation outside the House, and unanimous condemnation inside it, of the activities of parasitic claims farmers and claims management companies that engage in the process of securing referral fees simply to generate profit. A major objection to the activities of those concerns is that they foster the myth of the compensation culture. People who see advertisements on the streets or in newspapers which invite claims may get the impression that hordes of people are succumbing to the temptation to make wholly bogus claims. In the field of whiplash claims, it is acknowledged that there is some truth in that perception. However, in general terms, as the noble Lord, Lord Young of Graffham, pointed out in his report, there is no substance to the suggestion that there is a widespread compensation culture.

The amendment deals with the position of not-for-profit organisations. We are entirely at one with the Government in seeking to ban referral fees made to commercial organisations simply for the purpose of making profits. However, some organisations—be they charities or membership organisations—receive referral fees from firms of solicitors and perhaps from others whom they appoint to panels on the basis of their expertise and record of service, and whose contributions help those organisations carry out their main purpose. That might be service to members or, in the case of charities, the furtherance of the charitable objectives of the organisation. For example, among the charitable organisations are the Spinal Injuries Association, Headway and Action against Medical Accidents. There are others, too, which receive referral fees and use the proceeds to benefit those whom their organisation was set up to help. Other membership organisations and trade unions do likewise.

When we debated amendments of a similar nature last week, the Minister referred to the main—and understandable—objective of the Government, which is to restrict the cost of litigation. We share that objective. In the case of referral fees, it is perfectly achievable. It does not constitute a cost to the system. If a referral fee is effectively charged to the client, of course that is a cost to the client, and that ought to be avoided. On general costs, costs payable by a losing party to another are either agreed or assessed by the court. Obviously, the court can base its assessment of costs on what the normal tariff would be. I have appeared before the courts many times in 35 years of practice as a solicitor—endeavouring to justify the very modest costs that my firm sought—to explain and justify those fees. In fact, a kind of tariff is applied locally by the courts. In any event, if this were thought to be a danger in the system, it would be possible to allow the courts to deal with any such referral fee, to require it to be disclosed and to make it an irrecoverable disbursement from the paying party. So the question of additional costs can be satisfactorily dealt with.

In last week’s debate, the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, made some interesting points, one of which was incorrect. She said that the referral fees received by some trade unions find their way into the coffers of the political party with which I and others in this House are associated. That is not the case. Payments by trade unions to political parties of any colour come out of the political fund, not the general fund. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, who was once more closely involved with these matters than he is now, confirmed that.

However, the noble Baroness also referred, understandably, to the situation that arose in respect of compensation claims by miners regarding pneumoconiosis —a whole raft of cases over many years. Many law firms and others spent considerable time and money researching these cases and it was a very long time before they were settled and a scheme developed. The abuse in that case was actually rather different from what we are now debating. It was not so much the question of referral fees; it was the fact that some firms of solicitors—happily, not many—not only were paid by the Government under the compensation scheme but had the effrontery to deduct some payments from their clients. That was absolutely outrageous and many of the firms involved were severely disciplined, and rightly so, by the Law Society. But that is a separate issue from that which this amendment and the whole topic of referral fees address.

There is a world of difference between the use of referral fees by claims management companies and the like—simply to generate profit and at the same time perhaps to promote invalid claims on the off-chance that some of them may succeed—and that by other organisations genuinely endeavouring to assist their members and receiving funds which in turn are used for the benefit of the members or the non-commercial purposes, charitable or otherwise, of the organisation. I beg to move.

[Baroness Deech]

My Lords, I will try not to repeat myself, because I spoke about referral fees last week.

Briefly, in response to the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, the evil of referral fees is threefold. First, if the law firm can afford to pay a couple of hundred pounds for each case, then it stands to reason that the case could have been handled more cheaply. Secondly, when work goes to a particular firm of solicitors, it encourages that firm not to compete and not to do its job properly because, no matter what, the work will come to it. The case of the miners to which the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, referred and which I described last week did not arise directly from referral fees, but one can see the risk. If a firm knows that 23,000 cases will come its way willy-nilly, why should it try very hard? Why should it not take short cuts?

Thirdly, referral fees arrangements deprive the consumer of choice. The argument for referring consumers to a particular firm is that they would not otherwise know where to go. These charitable organisations, to which the noble Lord referred, could do the job just as well by listing a few firms and helping their clients to go to those firms without expecting money to come their way. As far as I can make out from research on the web—I stand to be corrected—on its web page on legal services the Labour Party says that clients who are members of the Labour Party will be referred to a particular firm of solicitors if they have a problem. If one continues to click through the pages, the firm says in very small print, buried deep in the internet, that for every case that comes to it from the Labour Party website several hundred pounds will be paid to the political party.

To make things even worse, referral fees, some of which may well come from legal aid, could be channelled inter alia to a political party. There is no case for referral fees. I encourage the House not to be wooed into any set of exemptions, even where worthwhile charities are concerned, because the bad nature of referral fees spreads throughout the system, regardless of who uses them. I hope that your Lordships will reject this amendment and any similar ones. Now is the time to end the practice of referral fees.

[Lord Goodhart]

My Lords, I agree entirely with what the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, has just said. Referral fees have for some years been a serious problem in almost all circumstances and have caused a great deal of trouble and unnecessary expense. It is not a case where, as the Labour Party has just proposed, it should be treated just as a matter where two firms are in business. This is a matter that requires to be removed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

I declare an interest as a member of Unite. The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, was good enough to say that she had mentioned the problems of referral fees in a previous debate. That debate took place on my amendment. My case was that trade union officers go to places where there has been an accident. Therefore, there is a certain expenditure when those visits are made. There is obvious expenditure and there should be some compensation. The noble Baroness was good enough to mention referral fees and I was deeply impressed by what she said. Therefore, I will not move Amendment 146.

[Baroness Deech]

My Lords, I should have declared an interest as chairman of the Bar Standards Board, which prohibits barristers from receiving or dealing in referral fees. If I gave the impression last week that referral fees that go to unions go direct to the political party and that is wrong, I apologise. My point is that it is happening in another way. I have not yet been corrected but my research on the internet showed that direct referrals from a party to a firm resulted in the firm paying a referral fee to the political party. Therefore, if it is not happening in one way, it may be happening in another.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

My Lords, I support the line taken by our Front Bench. Without any question, there are risks with referral fees but they are fairly minimal. The questions that the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and others should ask themselves are whether they believe that there will be more of the kind of litigants who at present benefit from the union offering these services, admittedly through using referral fees, especially given what we are doing to legal aid in this Bill; or whether there will be fewer people taking action. My view is that if these changes are put through, the likelihood is that unions will not be able to offer services on the same kind of basis that they have in the past. As a consequence, fewer people will pursue cases and the people who will not be pursuing those cases will be the ones at the bottom of the pile, and not those who are higher up with a fund of money to pursue the law without any trouble whatever. I put those very serious questions to those who are pursuing this line.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Wednesday 14th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendment 146 in my name. In doing so, I declare an interest as I have been a member of the Unite union for a long time. I am not having a go at the media on this matter but, often when trade unions are mentioned in the media, reference is made to trade union leaders. Not much is known about the activities of the lay officials and junior officers of a trade union. Tonight we have spoken about asbestos victims. A trade union would probably be the first port of call for a person who felt that they were suffering from the effects of asbestos inhalation. Apart from the serious matter of asbestos inhalation, your Lordships may be aware that even a National Health Service kitchen can be a very dangerous place for workers. They can fall, be scalded or be cut by the knives that they are using. After any injury such as that or any other injury relating to a person’s work, the first port of call is to the local trade union office, and an investigation is made before the matter is referred to a lawyer. Any of us who has run an office knows that photocopiers, heating, lighting and cleaning all cost money. It means that there should at least be some compensation for the trade union that is prepared to try to help that member before the member goes to a solicitor.

[Baroness Deech]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chair of the Bar Standards Board, which regulates barristers and prohibits the payment of referral fees, which we regard as immoral—I think that I am not putting it too strongly—and which we disapprove of because they are anti-competitive.

While I have every respect for my noble friend Lord Martin and for the work that the unions do to help their members, the amendment has brought to mind one of the most reprehensible incidents of modern times relating to lawyers and referral fees. I will not give the House too much detail because it is late at night, and the story is probably well known to noble Lords here, especially noble and learned Lords. When very many miners were sick and 23,000 cases were referred on by the union to a solicitors’ firm, it ended up with reprimand and with the law firm taking far more money than did the sick miners. The solicitors were paying the union, and in the case that I am thinking of the amount came to about £10 million, because 23,500 cases were referred to one firm.

If a firm of lawyers knows that a number of cases of that order are to be referred to them without the firm making any effort, without it going out into the market and proving how good it is, it is not surprising that things went wrong.

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

I know it is late in the evening and I thank the noble Baroness, but I am sure she would agree that not every union or every solicitor would conduct their affairs like that. Tomorrow, there will be unions that refer their members to a solicitor, and they will do so in good faith and in the best interests of their members.

[Baroness Deech]

I am sure that the noble Lord is right, but what I am objecting to is the exchange of money. If you go to the website of the union, you may click through to the page where legal services are offered, click where the page directs you to a law firm, the law firm is named, and then you can continue to click until it says, “For every case referred to this firm, the firm will pay the union a sum of several hundred pounds”. If the unions wish to help their members, it would be very easy simply to refer them to a whole number of local firms without money changing hands. There is nothing to stop the good work done by the unions, which I praise. It is the exchange of money that I object to. In the case that I am thinking of, it was actually public funds that went to the solicitors’ firm. It illustrates what is wrong with referral fees: the issue is treated as commercial and the law firm can sit back, knowing that cases will flood its way, whether it deserves them or not.

There have been other reprehensible incidents such as this, with which I will not delay noble Lords, save to mention one other effect. Given that very large sums of money are paid to the union, whichever union it is, by the law firm, and we know that many unions are inclined to support one political party, we end up with money being paid—very indirectly, I grant you—to the political party because the money is coming from the funds that the union has accumulated, and part of those funds come from referral fees.

If the solicitors can afford to pay £200 a time, or whatever it may be, to the union in return for every case, that must logically indicate that the case could have been handled for less money than was charged. I am by no means saying that that is always bad, but there is definitely a risk in referral fees. In particular, there is a severe risk to the interests of justice where a firm knows that thousands of cases can come its way without it making the effort in the market to get them and handle them well. Therefore, with all due respect, I hope that the amendment will not be pursued, as I do not think that it helps the Bill.

Supreme Court: President

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

Indeed. I always go along with the dictum of Denis Healey—the noble Lord, Lord Healey—that you should look for people with hinterland.

[Baroness Deech]

My Lords, do the Government acknowledge that the combination of high tuition fees and the cuts in legal aid will have a very bad impact on diversity at the young end of the legal profession, especially the Bar, and that there will be less diversity in years to come unless it is made possible for young people of all backgrounds to get a start at the Bar?

[Lord McNally]

We will be debating in the near future the cuts in legal aid. Where I do share concerns is that to get into the legal profession, whether as a barrister or a solicitor, requires a financial commitment that could have an adverse effect on social mobility. That is something that the Government will have to address.

Community Legal Service (Funding) (Amendment No. 2) Order 2011

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, in moving this Motion, I make it crystal clear that we on this side believe that there must be cuts to the legal aid budget. Over the past 30 years or so, perhaps until a few years ago, the amount spent on legal aid went up a great deal, year on year, and that was particularly true in the criminal legal aid field until the amount spent on criminal legal aid, compared with civil legal aid, was totally out of kilter.

As part of the necessary cuts, we, when in Government, took action to reduce legal aid spending and I do not apologise for that. Almost the last act we took in government, before the general election of 2010 was called, was to cut criminal legal aid advocates’ fees in the higher courts over a three-year period. It was not popular but it was necessary. Incidentally, that gives the lie to the present Government’s claim that we, the previous Government, were not prepared to tackle the deficit. If we had won that election, we would have cut further. My personal view is that there are large savings indeed to be made in our whole criminal justice system. In any event, we had published a White Paper, Restructuring the Delivery of Criminal Defence Services, which, if followed through, would have made considerable savings.

However, there are two considerable differences that exist between our proposals and those of the Government. First, Her Majesty’s Government are intent on cutting legal aid much too far and much too fast. They have not given any—certainly not enough—thought to the consequences of their policies, either in human or in financial terms. That leads me on to my second point. One of the areas in which they have chosen to axe legal aid, take it out of scope altogether and make savings in fees, is precisely the wrong area of law. They intend to remove welfare benefits advice and representation at all levels, including up to the Supreme Court; employment advice; much housing advice and even more debt advice; and some community care advice and education advice—in other words, advice to the poor and the vulnerable. They intend to save the sum of about £50 million per year through those cuts. Today, of course, we are not strictly debating the rights and wrongs of such an approach, but we shall be able to do that in short order when the Bill, currently in another place, comes to this House.

Tonight we are debating an order that in one fell swoop cuts 10 per cent from all—I repeat, all—civil fees, including family fees. To describe it as a rough and ready figure would be a gross understatement. It is a crude and ill thought-out measure with no evidential justification whatever. Although I am particularly concerned with the 10 per cent cuts to social welfare and community lawyers, the lowest paid of all the lawyers who do civil and family work, I acknowledge the powerful case put forward by other civil and family lawyers to me as a result of my Motion being tabled. I thank all those who have made their case. There may well be champions for them tonight, although I know that because of the lateness of the hour, various noble Lords whose contributions would have been very welcome on all sides have not been able to stay.

Interestingly, there are no comparable cuts on the criminal side—for example, in the sister order that accompanies this particular statutory instrument. This shows that the Government are quite ruthless when it comes to civil and family legal aid and as soft as butter when it comes to criminal legal aid. It is as though they have no sense at all of the fantastic value social welfare law has in our society, allowing, at comparatively cheap costs, early legal advice for many of those who could not possibly afford to get it, with the result that issues are solved and the courts are not full of hopeless cases and litigants in person. Noble Lords will perhaps have seen the concern of some Justices of the Supreme Court in the newspapers this morning. For some reason, the Government are determined to decimate social welfare law and drive out those hard-working, dedicated and, I would argue, poorly paid lawyers who practise in this field.

Who are these lawyers? They are often the not-for-profit sector; they work in law centres, citizens advice bureaux and other advice centres. Some are solicitors and barristers in private practice. Many, wherever they come from, sacrifice more lucrative legal careers in order to practise this type of law. If they do not practise it, who will?

Their fees are fixed fees brought in in October 2007 and raised by 2 per cent in 2008 but untouched since then. They are not overgenerous. We as a Government brought in the fixed fee and it undoubtedly caused problems in itself. We set up a study with many experts from this area of law to look into those problems, and we produced a document entitled a Study of Legal Advice at Local Level in order to attempt to tackle them. We as a Government refused at any time, and particularly during the recession, to cut legal aid spending on social welfare law. We increased it significantly from £151 million in 2007-08 to £208.4 million in our last year, 2009-10. We increased eligibility by 5 per cent, bringing in 750,000 more people, and increased the number of new matter starts. I am proud of what we did.

The proposed fees are set out in Table 1 of the order, to be found on page 4. These cases often take many hours’ work. They involve face-to-face contact. Often the lawyer, having seen the client, has to speak to third parties in order to resolve the problem. They are by no stretch of the imagination well paid. There is an exceptional threshold, but a case has to be very long indeed and very complicated to come into that category.

There are currently 52 law centres in England and Wales. They are not profit-making. They have had to make efficiency savings with the introduction of the fixed-fee system. Many rely heavily for the excellent work that they do on legal aid. Eight generate over 70 per cent of their income through legal aid contracts. None of these law centres has a 10 per cent surplus and at present they monitor cash flow on a weekly basis. There is no fat to them at all. All eight are at risk of closure. Four centres are particularly vulnerable, two in London and two outside the capital. Eight hundred thousand pounds is immediately to be taken from law centres’ funding overall by the 10 per cent cut. In the medium term, the combined effect of the 10 per cent cut plus the proposed scope cuts is that £8 million out of the £9 million in legal aid contracts that law centres enjoy will disappear. Eighteen law centres out of 52 will just not be viable—it may be more. Where, I ask, will people go to in order to get their legal issues sorted out?

I could make the same points about CABs, the citizens advice bureaux, which have a very high reputation, as do law centres, in Parliament and outside. Obviously CABs do not rely so heavily on legal aid, but many still rely on it, and at a time when local authority funding is, frankly, declining, CABs will also close as a consequence of this order. Noble Lords will remember that a few months ago there was news from Birmingham about the state of CABs in Britain’s second largest city.

Private sector firms that do this work also work on the same legal aid rates. All day long I have been receiving e-mails from solicitors who do this work. Sometimes, of course, other parts of these firms subsidise the social welfare law part of a firm, but I have been told that the amount of money that legal aid lawyers of many years’ standing get per year would make an extremely interesting database. It is much less, of course, than that of a solicitor who does not do that work and compares extremely badly with other professionals—very badly indeed. Those who practise in this field and who do this absolutely invaluable work do not expect enormous rewards, but nor do they expect to be penalised even further.

I end with the story of Law For All. Law for All was in west London, and many noble Lords may have heard of it. It was quite a large organisation. It provided legal help in the fields of debt, employment, family law, housing and welfare benefits. It also provided representation for many people over many years. However, it has now been forced to close down in anticipation of the reduction in the fixed fee and, of course, the fact that 90 per cent of their work is being taken out of scope in the Bill that is currently going through Parliament. This is a tragedy for local people, who received legal help in 1,500 cases last year. The local authority in that part of west London is generous, but the Government’s proposals have meant that Law For All has closed its doors. I have spoken this afternoon to the chief executive —or should I say ex-chief executive?—who confirmed that the 10 per cent cut that we are debating tonight and the taking out of scope have driven it to close.

It is important to point out that even where the area of social welfare law is not to be taken out of scope altogether, such as in some housing cases and some debt cases connected with housing cases, the order that we are debating tonight means that the continuing work in housing, for example, will be reduced by 10 per cent. All housing work that stays in scope will be affected.

Noble Lords may want to know how much this will save. It is estimated that the saving from the whole order, including the 10 per cent cut in civil and family legal aid across the board, is worth £45 million. The cuts as they affect social welfare law fees are all of £5 million. That is a figure that the Legal Action Group has confirmed. Of course it is a rough figure but it shows just how much or, rather, how little will be saved by this order. Saving £5 million in fees when Her Majesty's Government intend to spend £250 million on ensuring that there are weekly rather than fortnightly collections of rubbish is absolute nonsense. Have we not got our priorities entirely wrong?

In the Hansard published today, the Minister has answered a Question that I asked him. The information is that:

“In cash terms, spending on legal aid in 2010-11 was … some £66 million (3 per cent) below provision”.—[Official Report, 25/10/11; col. WA 137.]

Yet the aim is to save £5 million by cutting these fees by 10 per cent.

I am not allowed to seek to amend this order and I therefore have to pray against it as a whole. Whether I vote against it tonight will depend on what other noble Lords say in the course of the debate that I hope will follow and, of course, particularly on what the Minister says. I beg to move.

[Baroness Deech]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chairman of the Bar Standards Board. The Bar Standards Board is the regulatory arm of the Bar Council, not the representative one, and I have no direct concern with the pay that barristers earn. My job is to further the objectives laid down for the Bar in the Legal Service Act 2007. There are eight in Section 1, including protecting and promoting the public interest, improving access to justice and encouraging an independent, strong, diverse and effective legal profession. What I have to say tonight when I encourage your Lordships to annul this order is based entirely on the application of those objectives in the regulation of the education and working lives of barristers.

Last Sunday, an advertisement appeared in the Sunday Times headed,

“Helping the most vulnerable in Society”.

It was for a new chief executive of the Legal Services Commission, which hands out legal aid. I quote from the ad:

“Our role is to ensure through our providers that independent, high-quality legal advice and representation is available to vulnerable people who cannot afford it themselves. We enable people to protect their rights and defend their interests”.

This order flies in the face of the aspiration in that advertisement and of the achievements of the objectives in the Legal Services Act and the profession.

Let me turn first to the effect it will have on women and black and ethnic minority barristers. This is a central plank of the work that we do at the Bar Standards Board in encouraging and retaining those very barristers. The effect of this order is to cut the rates payable in family advocacy by 10 per cent. It will be felt hardest by women and black and ethnic minority barristers, who are disproportionately represented in dependence on legal aid, while white men are the least dependent sector. There has been considerable government pressure to open up the legal profession still more to entrants from all backgrounds, albeit that it is already a very diverse profession.

Alan Milburn’s report of 2009 singled out the legal profession in his survey of social mobility, even though the Bar and solicitors go to enormous lengths to explain and reach out to young people all over the country. The Bar has a record to be proud of, with over 15 per cent of pupillages going to black and ethnic minority students in a very competitive market. The cuts in fees in this order undo all that work, and make the Government appear two-faced.

Sixty per cent of the family Bar are women, and they do 66 per cent of legally aided children work. Half the family Bar relies on public funds for more than 60 per cent of its turnover. From their gross earnings, modest though they are, barristers have to pay overheads to chambers and clerks—typically 20 per cent—and in addition meet their own pensions, illness and professional insurance cover and expenses. The King’s College London survey of barristers in 2008-09 indicated that 80 per cent of them intended to abandon legally aided public work. This generation of young people have university tuition debts and huge fees at Bar school, and the modest but reliable income that was once their support in the early years at the Bar is now to diminish to such an extent that they cannot earn a living. There is no point in the great efforts put into outreach in this situation.

It continues on into the judiciary. The noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, reported on judicial diversity in 2010. A less diverse profession means a less diverse judiciary, and fewer women judges. The diminution of the profession also means more litigants in person taking up more court time, not less, with problems being stored for several years down the line because they cannot be settled in court in a proper and timely way.

As with other demanding professions, women are being lost to the Bar after five to 10 years in practice, because of the costs of childcare. It is unaffordable and will be even more so. Twice as many women leave the Bar as do men for that reason. The cut in fees in this order will weaken retention. It will also damage the children who are the subject of court orders, because now the experts who give evidence in child cases are placed within this table of reduced fees, and the fees are set at below the level needed to maintain their practices.

The Government have given no evidenced reason for cutting by 10 per cent, and they have not waited for the outcome of the Family Justice Review, chaired by David Norgrove. In March of this year, its interim report commented on the adverse impact that cuts would have, the lack of data about case-handling and flow through the court, and the contribution made by the lawyers in the cases. In the 2009 study Family Law Advocacy by the very experienced researchers John Eekelaar and Mavis Maclean of Oxford University, it was shown that where lawyers were involved in family law cases concerning money and children, the majority of cases were resolved without court process or contested hearing. Even where the cases went to court, in the highly charged emotional atmosphere that one would expect, the presence of specialist family lawyers enhanced the prospects of resolution and shortened the court process, for they are minded to act collaboratively and in the interests of the children. Additional damage has already occurred to women and children through the closure, because of already instituted cuts, of the advice agencies Refugee and Migrant Justice, the Immigration Advisory Service and Law for All, as the noble Lord, Lord Bach, has just mentioned.

There are more constructive ways to save money. First of all there is too much judicial review, now used as the citizen’s right of appeal. I was surprised to find when I was the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education, running an alternative dispute resolution service for students, that those students obtained legal aid to challenge our decisions. There should be a push back against the notion that human rights mean that any and every decision can be judicially reviewed at great cost to the public. As for human rights, the real denial of those is to the middle classes, who are neither poor enough to be eligible for legal aid, nor can afford to go to law at their own expense. They are therefore the real victims, who cannot access justice.

The other substantive reform needed is to bring certainty into the law of maintenance on divorce. An obvious model for this is the continental European system of community of property, to which the Scottish system is similar, which entails a fixed fifty-fifty split of post-marital property and little ongoing maintenance. Broad-brush justice it may be, but it is cheap and efficient to arrange. As long as we have our Rolls-Royce discretionary system of settling property issues on divorce, couples will continue to waste sums they can ill afford—sometimes amounting to as much as the property in dispute—on deciding who gets what.

This order should be annulled. The Government should await the Family Justice Review report and change substantive law to get a more efficient system without damaging the profession and its diversity.

Cohabiting: Law Commission Report

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, first, I pay tribute to the Law Commission for its work, not just on this matter but in general. I am a very firm supporter of the Law Commission and the work it does, and I know that this House has played an important role in bringing Law Commission recommendations into law. However, the Government have decided not to implement the Law Commission’s scheme in this parliamentary term, because major changes to family legal aid are being implemented next year, and further reforms of the family justice system are also on the horizon following the final report of the family justice review, which will be published in October. We do not believe it would be sensible to seek to implement further changes in the law governing cohabiting couples during this period.

[Baroness Deech]

My Lords, I put these points to the Minister on the basis of the hundreds of letters I have had from members of the public after lecturing on this subject, which go along these lines. First, people live together precisely because they do not want to be married and have that law applied to them, and they would see a cohabitation law as a sort of forced marriage—some of them said that they would fail to commit, or fail to stay, if the law were changed. Secondly, the financial relief law is so bad, so uncertain and so expensive that the assets of the couple would be eaten up and in the end the only beneficiaries, given that there will be no legal aid, might be the lawyers.

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I think that intervention suggests that it is right for the Government in this case to err on the side of prudence.