Justice: Legal Advice

Baroness Hollis of Heigham Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

Yes, my Lords, I am aware of that, but one of the points I have made continually through this is that the CAB and the law centres will have to adjust to a situation where the amount they have at their disposal is a lot less, just as my department and local authorities have had to do. That is a fact of life. As I have said on a number of occasions, we are a lot poorer than we thought we were four years ago. Citizens Advice has been extremely successful in lobbying and, as I have indicated, we have made more funds available. For example, my right honourable friend the Lord Chancellor has announced today that we will be giving further aid to the CAB at the Royal Courts of Justice to help with the particular work it is doing in this area.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

My Lords, in three weeks’ time the bedroom tax will kick in—and I use the phrase “kick in” advisedly. Some 660,000 families, two-thirds of them including someone with a disability, will lose between £14 and £25 a week from their benefit. Given that, despite the noble Lord’s answers, CABs are losing—locally, certainly—some 40% of their funding because the Lord Chancellor’s money has dried up, where does he expect those 660,000 families to go for advice?

[Lord McNally]

They will go to the CABs in their local authorities.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

With 40% cuts.

[Lord McNally]

The Opposition continue to preach gloom and doom about this. They will be entitled to bring to our notice how these impacts take place, but we have put a number of measures in place to try to deal with this new situation. We have put on a new online information service, we have given Citizens Advice and other advice centres transitional money and will continue to do so, and we are looking for innovations in legal services from other parts of the legal profession. We will see what happens.