Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Baroness Scotland of Asthal Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scotland of Asthal]

My Lords, I very much agree with everything that my noble friend has just said with her great common sense and straightforwardness. She is right about the two questions but she is also right that this Bill has caused real anxiety, particularly among the most vulnerable. That is clear from what everyone has said in this debate. If the economic case is a clear and well evidenced one, I respectfully suggest to the Minister that that would be the greatest salve he could apply to the anxiety which has been caused in so many people’s minds.

I wish to add to what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile. It is not just the vulnerable who find courts intimidating. Noble Lords will know that in this Bill it is proposed to remove all private family law from the scope of legal aid. All litigants, notwithstanding their normal level of articulacy, intellect and performance, find that area of law particularly challenging, delicate and painful. In those cases, the old adage is applied by lawyers that the client who represents himself is a fool. It is in those cases that help and support are particularly needed. The noble Lord will know that it is also an area where women tend to be disproportionately adversely affected, and that in domestic violence cases, which apply to men and women, 89 per cent of repeat victims are women. Therefore, there is real concern about the changes that are proposed if we do not understand the economic cost of so doing and the justification for it. Even those who are not poor have difficulty in family cases, particularly where the male member of the family is well endowed with money but the woman is not. Many women in that situation who may come from very advantaged families are obliged to use legal aid and will simply not try to receive their rights if they do not have it. One is therefore facing a potentially disproportionate and negative impact on women in those circumstances.

I therefore ask the noble Lord to think very carefully indeed about whether the evidence we have at the moment suffices and enables us to answer the two questions in particular that have been raised by my noble friend. If they cannot be answered in the affirmative, I hope that the Government will seriously think again.

[Lord Dubs]

My Lords, perhaps I may add a brief point to the debate, and I very much agree with the comments that have been made. A number of Members of this House have been Members of the Commons, as I have been, and we relied heavily in our advice surgeries on being able to steer people towards citizens’ advice bureaux or, indeed, to lawyers who could do a good job. However, one phenomenon that has disappeared more recently, but which was very marked as regards immigration cases in the 1980s, is people who set themselves up as advisers and who normally give thoroughly bad advice to distressed people who want help. One had to deal with that. If I got hold of constituents who were in such difficulties, I always steered them to the CAB, to the local law centre in Wandsworth or to decent lawyers.

I am worried that the phenomenon may happen again whereby, in the absence of legal aid support for certain types of cases, people will set themselves up as advisers who will pretend that they are doing this on the cheap and give advice that is not of the best quality and is, given my experience, thoroughly bad. I very much hope that one consequence of the Government’s measures will not be that people can set themselves up and mislead distressed and vulnerable people, take some of their money from them, and provide advice that is not at all helpful.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord McNally]

No. The commitment is to the expenditure from my department, and factored in are discussions with other departments which leave us confident that the kind of disproportionate impact which has been suggested will not occur. However, one knows how fluid these matters are when discussing government budgets. For example, how do last summer’s riots feed into the demand for prison places or indeed the demand for legal aid? There are variables and unknowns in these matters, but we have put forward our objective of cutting the legal aid bill by £350 million in a way that we hope is focused and takes account of some of the issues that have been raised. For example, domestic violence is in scope. We will have debates later about definitions of domestic violence, but to suggest that domestic violence is being taken out of scope is plainly not fair.

[Baroness Scotland of Asthal]

My Lords, I make it plain to the Minister and reassure him that no one is trying to be unfair in relation to domestic violence. The noble Lord will know that the impediments that have been put in the way of someone getting legal aid for domestic violence are quite acute. They have to have had an injunction within the previous 12 months, and there either has to be a person imprisoned within 12 months or the victim has to come at the top of the scale—that is, by being at threat of death or grievous bodily harm. That is an undue hurdle to overcome.

Secondly, we know that in many private law cases there are elements of domestic violence that are not proceeded with because the parties have lawyers and come to a settlement. The noble Lord wishes to use mediation. However, the King's College figures show that the additional mediation services that we would need would cost £46 million to £48 million; the Government's figures show that we have £10 million in the budget. Therefore, it is for these reasons that we ask for the evidence for the savings that will be made, because it does not appear to be there now.

[Lord McNally]

We will discuss this point at a further stage of the Bill. I compare that intervention by the noble and learned Baroness with her earlier one which was more broad-brush in its general condemnation. We will discuss the other areas when we come to them.

I will speak also about the issue of litigants in person, on which Amendment 195 focuses. I heard what was said, in particular by a number of noble and learned Lords—I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, qualifies as learned.