Civil Legal Aid (Remuneration) (Amendment) (No. 3) Regulations 2014

Debate between Baroness Stern and Lord Howarth of Newport

Wednesday 7th May 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stern (CB)]

My Lords, we in this House owe a great deal to the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, for his untiring attempts to preserve access to justice for vulnerable and powerless people—the legally aided claimants. I rise in support. I wanted to ensure that we had on record the concerns of some of the excellent people who work hard to get access to justice for powerless people, and I felt very privileged to hear the contribution from the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Surbiton, who is one of the stars in that firmament. Liberty does a great deal of this sort of work—I declare an interest as a trustee of the Civil Liberties Trust—but Liberty says that from its experience,

“the prospect of irrecoverable costs will place an unsustainable burden on claimant lawyers, making it simply too risky to pursue legal aid claims”.

I also want to mention young legal aid lawyers. Personally, and I am sure that other noble Lords will agree with me, I think we should be grateful that there is an organisation called Young Legal Aid Lawyers, and one wonders what they live on. The organisation has written to me about its work on legal aid immigration cases and the fear that the firms that these lawyers work for, in spite of their commitment to social justice, just cannot afford the risk of taking on some of these cases, even when they feel deeply that an injustice has taken place.

The Howard League for Penal Reform is extremely concerned about the effect of this measure on vulnerable people, including serving prisoners and those leaving prison. The Howard League referred me to the 2009 case of G, regarding a young person in trouble who was sleeping rough in a car. Through the Howard League he got a solicitor who brought judicial review proceedings about the responsibility to house him. Eventually the case reached the House of Lords where the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale, supported by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, came out with a judgment that has resulted in a profound change in the way in which homeless young people are dealt with by local authorities. That one case has had a substantial effect on the lives of many children and saved a great deal of money.

Other judicial review cases have profoundly affected and improved the treatment of vulnerable prisoners—for example, a successful judicial review challenge with regard to the failure to transfer a prisoner with mental health problems from prison to a secure hospital for treatment; a successful judicial review challenge on behalf of a severely disabled prisoner in relation to the prison authorities’ failure to provide him with a motorised wheelchair and allocate him to an adapted disabled cell; a successful judicial review claim on behalf of a female prisoner with regard to the lack of disabled facilities in women’s open prisons; a successful judicial review on behalf of a prisoner with learning disabilities relating to the prison authorities’ failure to adapt offending behaviour programmes; and a successful judicial review challenge on behalf of a prisoner to stop prison authorities from reading his legal mail.

Those are all important matters that relate to the just treatment of vulnerable individuals and those who face discrimination. They are decisions that change the way in which things are done so that prisoners with learning disabilities can do offending behaviour programmes and maybe get parole, prisoners with serious mental health problems go to hospital and get treated and disabled prisoners are treated with respect for their human dignity. Does the Minister not regret just slightly that these sorts of developments will become more rare? Will he explain what he actually has against people such as those who have been described during this debate getting the wrongs that are done to them righted?

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, we should be grateful to the members of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee and the Joint Committee on Human Rights for their two excellent reports; and, of course, to the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, for securing this debate. Parliament ought to be vigilant for the liberties of the people. The committees and the noble Lord have indeed been so.

There are constitutional principles at stake in these regulations of bedrock importance: the principle that effective remedy should be available against arbitrary government and the principle that there should be equality under the law. Indeed, it is the rule of law itself which is in question. The law should be for the convenience of the people and not their governors. It is essential, therefore, that remedy should be available that is practical for an aggrieved citizen to seek, and that is available regardless of his personal means, against a public body that conducts itself in a manner that is unlawful, procedurally incorrect, incompetent, oppressive or unreasonable. If judicial review is not available to enable a challenge to wrongful decisions by the state or its agencies, we move away from a liberal constitution and towards executive absolutism.

Noble and learned Lords have explained in exactly what detailed respects these regulations are so offensive and how they would do their damage in practice. I pay tribute to them as I do to the range of admirable organisations and individuals who have made representations to us. It is extraordinary that we should be asked to rely on the funding of remedy against bad government at the discretion of the same Government who are themselves being impugned.

If it is unsure that legal aid will be available for the preparation of meritorious cases, then the freedom to seek judicial review is no more than the proverbial freedom of the poor man to dine at the Ritz. If a significant number of applications will not, under these regulations, be able to proceed, we lose important opportunities for the clarification of the law and for the improvement of public administration that the pressure of judicial review brings about.

Are these regulations really designed to save money? The Explanatory Memorandum asks us to accept that they are, and says that the primary objective of the Government in bringing in these regulations is to bear down on the overall cost of legal aid. I do not believe it. The Ministry of Justice’s estimate of how much might be saved is in the range, as the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, mentioned, of between £1 million and £3 million. That is an extraordinarily vague assessment. We are also told by the department that somewhere between 20% and 69% of applications, if one goes by recent experience, would no longer receive legal aid. Again, the vagueness of that range—between 20% and 69% of cases—is horrifying. It would seem that the department has not done its homework and, certainly, that it has no clue as to how much it might be going to save. That is before we consider what would happen to net costs. There can be little doubt that the costs of the changes brought in by these regulations would be shunted elsewhere and would certainly not, in the end, be avoided.

Nor has the department been able to make clear how the payments system will work. Reasonably enough, if solicitors and advocates cannot foresee with any confidence that they will be paid, they will not be willing to take on cases. This is a shoddy and improper way in which to legislate. I also believe that the generality of citizens of this country, if apprised of the significance of the issues at stake, will be more than happy to pay whatever taxes it takes to pay for a proper system of judicial review.