Civil Legal Aid (Merits Criteria) Regulations 2012

Baroness Mallalieu Excerpts

Monday 3rd December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I, too, am not a lawyer. I think that the noble Lord is asking what comes next, and that relates to the second order, not the first one, which the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, asked about. I will try to cover the point which he has raised when I get to that.

As I said, there was never any attempt on our part to change the rules as far as judicial review was concerned. However, when a former Lord Chancellor, a former Lord Chief Justice and a former Attorney General tell you that it needs clearing up, I think it is only wise to see whether it can be cleared up, and that is what we will do.

Moving on, I have explained in detail how we have listened to the concerns of this House—in particular, in extending legal aid in welfare areas. I have never hidden the fact that the LASPO Bill was a very difficult Bill involving some difficult choices. I can remember answering questions at this Dispatch Box two years ago, when we first launched the consultation. I said then that, if you have a system which is targeted to help the poorest and most disadvantaged in your society and you are forced to make cuts in that system, you are going to affect the poorest and most disadvantaged in your society. I have never hidden that fact.

The idea that LASPO was nothing other than a very difficult Bill is again before this House. Many of the arguments that have been deployed tonight were deployed during the passage of that Bill. However, I remind this House that the LASPO Bill is now an Act that went through both Houses of Parliament and carries with it financial implications that have to be considered when discussing any changes to it. There is no infinite pot of money available and we have to think very carefully about how taxpayer-funded money is spent. The Bill was therefore designed to ensure that public funding remains available for the most serious cases and for those who need it most. In making hard decisions and tough choices, we have listened to the concerns of some of the very same Peers who have spoken today, and we made changes during the passage of the LASPO Bill.

Not for the first time, the noble Lord, Lord Bach, claims that the Government have not listened. I take this opportunity to set the record straight. I remind the House of the Government’s original proposal following the consultation on Proposals for the Reform of Legal Aid in England and Wales. Our response to the consultation stated that,

“it remains the Government’s view that legal aid should be removed for welfare benefits cases, as proposed in the consultation. However, it will be retained for judicial review of welfare benefit decisions, and for claims about welfare benefits relating to a contravention of the Equality Act 2010 that are currently funded, as proposed in the consultation”.

That was our starting point. Since then, we have moved considerably from that position in response to arguments deployed in both Houses. During ping-pong on the LASPO Bill, having listened carefully to the arguments, we agreed to make available legal aid for advice and assistance for welfare benefit appeals on a point of law in the Upper Tribunal, including for applications made to the Upper Tribunal for permission to appeal. In addition, we agreed to make legal aid available for advice, assistance and representation for welfare benefit onward appeals in the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court. The order before us today makes a further concession which is not insignificant.

It may be helpful if I illustrate how this will work. An individual will make an appeal to the First-tier Tribunal against an administrative decision of a public authority. If the appeal is unsuccessful, the claimant can request a statement of reasons for the decision. The appellant can then apply to the First-tier Tribunal for permission to appeal to the Upper Tribunal. At this point, the First-tier Tribunal must consider whether to review its own decision if it considers that it has erred in law, and legal aid for advice and assistance will now be available in relation to that review. If the tribunal decides not to review, the next step is for the First-tier Tribunal to decide whether to grant or refuse permission to appeal to the Upper Tribunal. Where the tribunal refuses permission to appeal, the appellant can then apply directly to the Upper Tribunal for permission to appeal. Again, legal aid will be available for an application for this stage of the process. If permission is granted by the Upper Tribunal, then legal aid is again available for the substantive appeal before the Upper Tribunal.

Therefore, it is wrong and misleading to suggest that we are not making legal aid available in respect of points of law. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, we considered this matter in great detail following the debates during the passage of the Bill. We have explored every possible option to find a workable solution. Our considered assessment is that other methods of independent verification would have proved unworkable. We did consider the CAB proposals but we felt that they would create unreasonable cost and administrative burden. The cost is important. We have never tried to hide the fact that part of the exercise was for legal aid to make a contribution to the cuts in the spending review for the Ministry of Justice, a department which spends money only on prisons, probation, court services and legal aid. The proposals would have placed burdens on the successor to the Legal Services Commission, the tribunal judiciary and the Department for Work and Pensions.

In the Government’s impact assessment we identified that, in 2009-10, we funded 135,000 instances of welfare benefits legal advice. If the judiciary had to consider up to 135,000 interlocutory applications for legal aid, the impact on the tribunal service would be severe, and it could lead to serious delays in the resolution of other cases. Similarly, if the Department for Work and Pensions or the successor to the Legal Services Commission had to consider that large number of cases before they could be funded, it would result in a significant extra administrative and cost burden. We do not believe it right to impose these additional burdens in the current economic climate.

We have therefore decided on the approach set out in the order. This would impose no additional burdens on the tribunal judiciary because it must already consider whether to conduct a review on receipt of an application for permission to appeal against a finding of the First-tier Tribunal. The tribunal can conduct a review only if it is satisfied that there has been an error of law in the First-tier Tribunal’s decision.

[Baroness Mallalieu]

If the position is, as we have heard during this debate, that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, a former Lord Chancellor, and my noble friend Lord Bach, a Queen’s Counsel, cannot agree on the interpretation of the wording of Article 3 of this order, is it not clear that people who have no legal qualification and are going to have to look at it to see whether they can obtain legal aid are going to be completely mystified? Whatever the merits or otherwise of the order which the Minister is addressing now, this is badly drafted, unclear and needs to be looked at again.

[Lord McNally]

I do not accept that. I accept that the lawyers may have glossed the patch a little, as the noble Lord, Lord Reid, acknowledged. We are discussing various complex matters of its operation. I go back to the point that our initial intention was to take welfare out of legal aid—something that the noble Lord, Lord Bach, has opposed from the very beginning; I understand and appreciate that. That does not take away the fact that we have argued our case through both Houses of Parliament and put an Act on to the statute book. This is about implementing that Act.

It is clear that the Government have listened. We have compromised. However, we can go no further with concessions which impact the fundamental objectives of our reform: to focus legal aid on the highest-priority cases while delivering the essential savings needed to address the deficit which is threatening this country’s stability.

I was at a conference the other day where the noble Lord, Lord Bach, used a term which he may have been saving up for his final remarks. He said that next year we face a “perfect storm” in terms of welfare, in that we are indeed carrying through the LASPO reforms and the welfare reforms at the same time. That is going to introduce strain. However, the perfect storm would be if we lost control of our currency and economy, and if we lost markets. That is when the people whom we have heard about today, whom people want to protect, would really feel the full blast of economic problems. We are trying to—