Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chris Grayling and Paul Blomfield

Tuesday 17th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

14. What steps he plans to take to ensure access to justice regardless of ability to pay.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Grayling)]

The fee remissions scheme was updated on 7 October this year. It provides for court and tribunal fees to be waived in whole or in part based on an assessment of the user’s disposable capital and gross monthly income. The scheme ensures that access to justice is protected for those who cannot afford to pay court or tribunal fees. Legal aid also remains available in many cases, and those granted legal aid will have their court fees paid.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Blomfield]

The Secretary of State’s justification for the legal aid residence test is contribution, particularly through tax. Can he therefore explain his decision to exempt only certain categories of children from the test? If he fails to broaden the exemption, is he not in danger of falling into the trap that the Joint Committee on Human Rights described last week as

“knowing the price of everything but the value of nothing”?

[Chris Grayling]

I might be a bit old-fashioned, but I do not think that we should give civil legal aid to people who have just arrived in the country. However, I recognise some of the issues raised in the consultation and I have listened. The change with regard to very young children under 12 months old was specifically requested by people in the judiciary. I listened and I introduced it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chris Grayling and Paul Blomfield

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

2. What assessment he has made of the potential effect of his planned probation reforms on the rate of reoffending.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Grayling)]

Extending statutory supervision and rehabilitation to every offender released from custody, introducing an unprecedented nationwide through-the-gate prison service, and bringing in innovation of a diverse range of providers will help to reduce stubbornly high and rising reoffending rates.

[Paul Blomfield]

The Secretary of State will know that South Yorkshire probation trust is a high-performing organisation that has delivered five years of significant reductions in reoffending against predicted rates. Its performance is described as excellent by his Department. He also knows that his Department’s internal risk register warns that there is a more than 80% chance that his proposals to privatise the probation service will lead to an unacceptable drop in operational performance. Will he recognise the risk, face the facts, put public safety first and think again?

[Chris Grayling]

The real risk would be not to accept the fact that reoffending is rising in this country, and that each year thousands of people are victims of crime committed by people who leave prison unsupervised and unguided. That is what this Government intend to change.

Transforming Legal Aid

Debate between Chris Grayling and Paul Blomfield

Thursday 5th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend is right; we have focused the majority of our changes relating to the Bar on those at the upper end of the income scale. I know that this is difficult and that these are painful decisions for some people, but there will be a limit to what we can afford to pay someone who is living off public funds entirely or almost entirely.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

While welcoming the Justice Secretary’s statement, made in the face of the enormous opposition that his original proposals generated, may I press him further on one of the earlier answers he gave? Will his new proposals still mean that not only trafficked people, but separated children, survivors of domestic violence, detainees and children under 12 months will have reduced eligibility for legal aid?

[Chris Grayling]

We have made exceptions to that test with our modifications relating to the residency test, particularly for very young children and victims of domestic violence and of trafficking, and in one or two other cases where we have international obligations, but the vast majority of people who come to this country have to expect to be here for a while before they can access civil legal aid. That is right and proper, and it is what the public would expect.