Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill
Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts(12 years, 3 months ago)
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“( ) The amendments made by this section do not apply in relation to proceedings which include a claim for damages for respiratory disease or illness (whether or not resulting in death) arising from industrial exposure to harmful substance.”
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, earlier in our Committee’s proceedings today, the noble Lords, Lord Beecham and Lord Newton of Braintree, were good enough to provide a curtain raiser for the amendment that we are about to consider. Amendments 137A, 156A and 156B fall in Clauses 43, 45 and 46 and happily enjoy all-party support from all parts of your Lordships' House. I am grateful particularly to my noble friend Lord Wigley and the noble Lords, Lord Avebury and Lord Bach, as fellow signatories to the amendment. I should also say that the noble Lord, Lord Newton of Braintree, asked me to add that he, too, is a firm supporter of the amendment, as are my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss and my noble friend Lord Martin of Springburn. The noble Lord, Lord Walton of Detchant, was also in the Chamber briefly earlier, and he asked me to say that he, too, has acute anxieties about the negative impact of these new arrangements on people suffering from mesothelioma. I think that the Minister would agree that this demonstrates that there is concern from all parts of your Lordships’ House, which I hope he will take seriously.
At the outset, I would like to pay tribute to the Asbestos Victims Support Group Forum UK and especially to Mr Tony Whitston, who took the trouble to come to Westminster to meet my noble friends Lord Wigley and Lord Avebury and myself—I know that he has also briefed the noble Lord, Lord Bach—and to set out the concern of mesothelioma victims, which he did with great clarity and with passion.
As the Bill currently stands, these mesothelioma sufferers, whose life expectancy is nine to 12 months from diagnosis, will be required to surrender 25 per cent of general damages—the damages average about £65,000—in success fees. These amendments would permit those suffering from an asbestos-related illness or other respiratory diseases to recover success fees and “after the event” insurance from a defendant in a successful claim for damages. However, I would like to split my remarks this evening into mentioning something about the background to this issue; secondly, something about the effects of these amendments; and, finally, four reasons why I hope that the amendments will commend themselves to the Committee and to the Government.
Up until 1995, when conditional fee agreements were introduced, most mesothelioma sufferers, along with many personal injury claimants of modest means, used legal aid to seek justice in the courts. In 1949, an estimated 80 per cent of the population satisfied the income criteria for legal aid, but by 1990 only 48 per cent qualified. As middle-income claimants were increasingly denied access to justice and given the Government’s determination to cut the cost of legal aid, in 1995 CFAs were introduced. Between 1995 and 2000, the success fee and “after the event” insurance were paid by claimants, take-up of CFAs was understandably limited and, wherever possible, mesothelioma cases were still run under legal aid. Trade unions then stepped in to provide additional support for many victims.
When the Access to Justice Act 1999 became effective, on 1 April 2000, the new CFA regime allowed for recovery of success fees and ATE insurance to make up for the abolition of legal aid for most personal injury cases. Under the previous legal aid regime, solicitors were paid for their work even if they lost the case, which allowed them to take on difficult but meritorious cases. The new CFA regime changed the funding arrangements by making provision for success fees, which in many cases have been fixed.
Without doubt, access to justice was certainly improved for everyone, including mesothelioma sufferers, under the new CFA regime from 2000 onwards. Put bluntly, solicitors and barristers were willing to take on riskier cases because the rewards were greater. Be that as it may, the important aspect is that those potential litigants who, due to their lack of funds, were hitherto prevented from accessing our courts were empowered by the new arrangements and able to bring their case. This is a conclusion with which the Ministry of Justice itself agrees. Its consultation paper, CP 13/10, Proposals for Reform of Civil Litigation Funding and Costs in England and Wales, states:
“There is general consensus that CFAs have increased access to justice for those who might otherwise not have been able to afford to bring a claim since they became enforceable in 1995, and particularly after the Access to Justice reforms which made CFAs an especially attractive funding method for claimants”.
Lord McNally
I never said that there was. But I can say to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, that I am quite sure that the insurance industry has been lobbying on this Bill. However, I can also tell him that the lawyers have not been too bad at lobbying either.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
I have no brief from either the insurance industry or from lawyers. I simply make the point that this is not about money from the public purse or money being abused by this or that group. This is treading dangerously close again to the arguments about people manipulating or misusing the system, or claiming compensation to which they are not entitled. Surely the noble Lord would agree that, because of the very moving personal circumstances which he described, and as the noble Lord, Lord Bach, has said, no one can fake these circumstances where mesothelioma is involved.
Lord McNally
I am not treading anywhere near that. I am saying that we are trying to bring a structure to the civil side that squeezes out of the process what has been considered by the senior judiciary, and by Lord Justice Jackson when he looked at the issue, to be an inflationary element of the process. Listening to some speeches, it sounds as though conditional fee agreements would not be possible; they will be. It also sounds as though 25 per cent of the compensation has to go on the success fee. It is entirely discretionary. Lawyers could refuse to take a success fee. In fact, I think it was my noble friend Lord Thomas who said earlier that we may well find that lawyers make a selling point of not taking success fees. This is not a hard, uncaring Government picking out difficult cases. They will go ahead and they will be won. The Government are ready to take steps to try to help people in this area.
In April 2011, supported by the Government, the insurance industry set up the Employers’ Liability Tracing Office. ELTO provides an online resource through which claimants and their representatives can search for the relevant policy, reducing the time and costs that are often involved in such searches. This difficulty was referred to earlier: namely, the difficulty of identifying and finding the employer’s insurer. ELTO provides claimants with access to an electronic database of EL policies through an online inquiry facility, substantially enhancing the previous tracing service that relied on insurers checking against their own policy records.
With effect from 1 April 2011, the Financial Services Authority introduced rules requiring an EL insurer to publish tracing information for all newly issued or renewed EL policies, and for old policies on which new claims are made. Insurers may use ELTO to satisfy their own requirements or publish details on their websites. To date, more than 98 per cent of the active EL insurance market has joined ELTO, as have a large number of insurers in run-off who are not covering current employment but are still liable or potentially liable for past cover. Most of the tracing information for new policies and some historical policies is readily accessible on the ELTO central database.
The FSA is continuing actively to consider how best to address the issue of other historical policies. Some insurers have voluntarily included additional historical policies on the ELTO database. The answer is unlikely to be as simple as requiring details of all historical policies to be put on the database, as these are not always readily available, especially when searching archives from over 10 years ago. While ELTO will ensure that in the future more people can obtain civil damages for industrial diseases, it may still be very difficult to trace historical policies, especially for those individuals suffering from long-tail diseases such as mesothelioma. We understand the urgency of the situation in which injured people, after all other avenues have been exhausted, are still unable to find an insurer to claim against, and we are working hard to see what can be done for them. We are still working closely with all stakeholders to see what can be done to compensate people with mesothelioma who are unable to claim civil damages because their employer no longer exists and their EL insurer cannot be found.
If, for any reason, someone who contracts mesothelioma is unable to bring a civil claim because they cannot trace their employer or the relevant employers’ liability insurance policy, a number of other possible routes of redress are available through state schemes operated by the Department for Work and Pensions. I take the point made by my noble friend Lord Avebury about the discussions going on at the DWP. The department is continuing to work with stakeholders to see what can be done to compensate people with mesothelioma and similar conditions who are unable to claim civil damages because their employer no longer exists and the employers’ liability insurance policy cannot be found. In the light of this, I am not persuaded—
Lord Thomas of Gresford
The issue really is this: should all cases be treated alike? Well, Lord Justice Jackson did not treat all types of litigation alike. For example, he specifically recommended that clinical negligence should stay within legal aid, for various reasons that we have gone through that I do not need to repeat. Nor did he suggest that all his proposals should be limited to personal injury cases; he thought that they should be broader but they could vary, depending on the particular circumstances.
The reason for that is that risk varies. For road traffic accidents, nine out of 10 cases will be won because it is fairly easy to determine in a road traffic accident who is at fault, to what degree and so on, and the quantum follows thereafter. In clinical negligence cases, three out of four cases will be lost, so the risk is very different. That is why Lord Justice Jackson decided that clinical negligence should remain within the scope of legal aid. We are not involving government money or public money here; what we are trying to discuss is what constitutes a fair balance in a particular category of case, which can vary from case to case. I do not think that we should approach this on the basis that there is an architecture that should apply to every particular type of claim that is ever brought.
In mesothelioma cases, for example, we are not so much concerned with the fact that the person has the disease; what we are concerned with, as the noble Lord will appreciate from the very moving story that he told about his own family, is causation. That is the issue in this type of case. You can easily show that someone has died as a result of this disease, but what caused it, when, how and whether the case has been brought within a reasonable period of time are at issue. Very often, that requires not the sort of expenditure on medical reports that you get in clinical negligence cases; it often depends on expert reports on where the asbestos was, how it was dealt with and whether there was a likelihood, which passes the threshold of more likely than not, that that particular presence of asbestos in the workplace at a particular time caused the disease from which, as in the case that I cited, many years later the particular individual dies. We can therefore see that in some cases it is a medical issue, while in some cases it is causation, but they differ—and it is quite legitimate for the Committee to consider the different type of case, as we have in our discussion of judicial review, for example. In our debate on the next set of amendments, I shall come on to the question of environmental law, where very different issues arise compared with other types of litigation. We are not looking for an architecture to involve everything; we are looking for what is right in a particular category of cases. I propose in a moment, when this amendment will I hope be withdrawn, to enlighten your Lordships a little about environmental law.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, in his peroration the Minister relied on the phrase “squeezing inflationary costs out of the system”—a point to which the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, referred. The only people who will be squeezed as a result of this are those who suffered previously and who have fatal diseases. I cannot see the argument that the Minister put before the Committee this evening in the terms in which he has expressed it. As he implied at the end of his remarks, this is not about legal aid or public money; on the point about causation that the noble Lord referred to a moment ago, this is about people’s right to have access to the justice system, and not then to have to hand over any damages that they win. This is about people who have demonstrated successfully in the courts that they have become victims and who then have to hand over a quarter of the damages that they receive to pay for the action that they have been able to bring successfully.
The Minister showed enormous sensitivity to this issue as he described his own family circumstances to the Committee. When he reads the debate further overnight, he may want to reflect on some of the points that have been made. He was accused earlier of not showing flexibility. I understand the pressures placed on any Minister having to oversee a Bill of this kind, but we are only in Committee. I hope that he will share with his right honourable friend the Lord Chancellor the debate tonight and will look particularly at the questions raised earlier on by me and others about the costs involved to the public purse in not accepting these amendments. The reverse arithmetic and accounting to that which he has advanced at the Dispatch Box this evening would seem to apply, and in his refutation of the argument he did not deal with that point.
The Minister also implied that all lawyers would somehow be winners—that they would be the ones putting the inflationary pressures into the system. I remind him of the case that I cited today and at Second Reading of Norman Jones, the president of the Liverpool Law Society. This is a lawyer who is not part of a huge legal practice; he made it clear that under this dispensation it would be impossible for him to have fought the case that he successfully brought with CFAs through all the courts, right up to the Supreme Court. He would not have been able to bring that case. It is because of cases of that kind and the adverse effects on the victims as well that the Minister should reflect on this matter before Report.
During the debate, we have heard invoked the names of victims. Mrs King was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Bach, Marie Hughes by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, and the Minister mentioned Betty, a member of his family. We have heard also of good lawyers; the noble Lord, Lord Martin, mentioned Frank McGuire, and vividly described his own experiences on the factory floor. We have heard about campaigners. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, who has battled on this subject since the 1970s, and the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, both referred to Nancy Tait.
The noble Lord, Lord Bach, said to us that employers should have to make full redress and employees full restitution. He said that no one is faking mesothelioma. He also reminded us of the canards of the so-called health and safety culture, and of the compensation culture. The noble Lord, Lord Wigley, said that access to justice should not be the preserve of a few.
It is worth remembering that the mesothelioma death rate in this country is the highest in the world. That is why I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, was overstating the case when he said that what we are doing is intolerable. He said that it is unconscionable, mean-spirited, callous and immoral. Although it is my intention now to withdraw this amendment, I give notice that it is also my intention to return with these amendments on Report if we are unable to make progress on this issue. With the leave of the Committee, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill
Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts(12 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Newton of Braintree
As a non-lawyer trespassing with great trepidation into this lawyers’ paradise territory I am prepared to accept that, but to a layman “physical or psychological injury” as a definition of any serious kind would cover pretty well anything. If I am told I am wrong then I will accept that, but at the moment I think it is in doubt.
Having made that point, which will indicate that were there to be any question of pressing some of these amendments to a vote—I understand that there is not—then my noble friend on the Front Bench will be thrilled to hear that I would not be minded to support them, I turn to the more positive point about Amendment 156A and the amendment later on of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, relating to asbestosis. I have some experience of claims relating to that disease—or rather to mesothelioma, the form of cancer to which it often gives rise—in my capacity as both Minister for Disabled People and Minister for the industrial injuries compensation scheme, and latterly as chairman of a hospital sometimes concerned with these respiratory diseases. I think there is a real case for wondering whether we should not maintain assistance to that group of people.
There are two reasons for that. One is that this condition is what you might call very slow burn. Exposure to asbestos that occurred very many years ago may give rise much later to mesothelioma, one of the nastiest forms of cancer. In consequence, there could be significant difficulties in proving the causation. Therefore, there is a case for making sure that legal aid is available in such cases. The nature of this disease and the problems associated with it also make a strong case in ordinary human terms for ensuring that people who have contracted it through no fault of their own as a result of something that happened during their employment should be helped to establish whether their employer could be held liable for that, or, indeed, whether they should get compensation in any other way. Therefore, I hope my noble friends on the Front Bench will not consider that this amendment would have a scattergun effect but that it is well targeted and deserves careful consideration. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Alton, will make his case alongside mine in an hour or two or whenever we reach the relevant amendment.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, I wish to intervene briefly to support the terms of the amendment spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Bach, specifically on industrial-related injury such as mesothelioma—the issue to which the noble Lord, Lord Newton, has just alluded. We will debate that whole question later but it is worth reinforcing the point that 30,000 people have died of mesothelioma over the past 30 to 40 years and that 60,000 more people are predicted to die of this terrible disease in due course. From the time of prognosis to death, the period which elapses is usually about nine months. Whatever else, it is obvious that this is not a group of people who can bring in vexatious or frivolous cases. If the Government are minded to look for some exceptions—the rifle-shot approach that the noble Lord, Lord Newton of Braintree, has just advocated, not the blunderbuss approach—clearly this is one of those groups which I hope they will look to exempt. The measure does not even ask for legal aid; it simply asks for the status quo, which is that success fees can be paid in such cases.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Walton of Detchant, would have wanted to speak at this moment or, indeed, on the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Alton. He reminded me of the appalling stories of the miners and the solicitors who eventually took virtually all their money. Whatever else is done, it is of enormous importance that one should be very strict about how much can be taken from the damages that may be received. However, more important than that is this special class of asbestos sufferers. They are not large in number, although the noble Lord, Lord Alton, gave extremely worrying figures that I did not know about. The life expectancy of these people is dependent on whether they are suffering from blue asbestos or white asbestos. They are a very special case. One entirely understands what lies behind the Government’s need to introduce this measure. However, whatever else they do, one hopes that they will recognise this particularly special case.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, I wish briefly to raise my voice to support my noble friend Lady Coussins in moving this amendment, and in so doing mention that I am treasurer of the All-Party Parliamentary Friends of CAFOD group, one of the groups that has made representations about the amendments before the Committee.
Some 6 million people have died in the fighting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo over the past 30 years. A lot of the conflict and the human rights abuses, which continue to this day in places such as Goma and the Kivus, where rape is used daily as a weapon of war—a Question on that subject was raised on the Floor of your Lordships' House as recently as last week by the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock—have been driven on by a culture of appropriation whereby mineral assets have been taken, particularly in the past by companies based in Belgium but also by some British companies, and in a culture of impunity.
Unless it is possible to test such cases in western courts, those violations will go on in the future. That is why it is so important to maintain at least this small opportunity—the opening that exists in domestic law at present—for such cases to be brought before our courts. I hope that when the Minister replies to this amendment, he will be able to tell us precisely how often this provision has been used, whether there has been any cost to the public purse and how much that has amounted to, and whether he thinks that in any event that is a price worth paying to uphold the rights to which my noble friend referred in her admirable speech in moving the amendment.
Lord Avebury
My Lords, I do not believe that any cost whatever has fallen on public funds but I shall be as interested as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, to hear from the Minister about that aspect of the amendment. Both the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, in moving the amendment, and my noble friend Lady Hooper, underlined the fact that we are talking about a very small number of cases that would not encourage the development of a litigation culture; quite the contrary. In the few cases that we are talking about, there would be a significant impact not only on the lives of many thousands of people who are directly affected but, as has also been emphasised, on corporate practices and international norms in business and human rights.
I declare an interest as president of the Peru Support Group, which was particularly concerned in the Monterrico Metals case described by the noble Lord, Lord Judd. This is a paradigm case because there is no doubt whatever that the poor indigenous inhabitants of Peru would have been totally unable to mount this action if the proposals in the Bill had come into effect. Is that really what your Lordships want—to say that people in the third world who are victims of appalling human rights abuses by United Kingdom or United Kingdom-based companies are not going to be able to bring proceedings in the courts of law? I do not believe that that is what your Lordships would like to happen. Therefore, I beg my noble friend to listen very carefully and come forward with proposals that, if they are not word for word on the lines of these amendments, at least convey their sense, as the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, said.
Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill
Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts(12 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, as my noble friend Lady Howe rightly said a few moments ago, other amendments later in our proceedings will return to the general question of legal aid. I will reserve some of my remarks for that later group of amendments, as my noble friend indicated that she, too, would do. However, I would be sorry to see the amendment proceed without as many voices as possible being raised around your Lordships’ House in support of what the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, said today. As the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, intimated, this is of central concern. The noble Baroness was right about this at Second Reading and she was right to bring this amendment before the House today. I hope that the Government will reflect on the arguments that were laid before us.
At Second Reading I mentioned that an organisation of which I am a patron, the National Association of Child Contact Centres, had written to me expressing concern about the number of volunteers who are withdrawing from voluntary service because of the pressures that we are placing on them. That, in tandem with the reduction of resources being made available to Citizens Advice and other voluntary organisations because local authorities have to cut back on their funding, should cause all of us to stop and ask the kind of questions that the noble Lord, Lord Newton, properly put to us earlier. I am sure that the Minister shares many of these concerns. He would not want to see—any more than any noble Lord would want to see—people with spina bifida, autism, cerebral palsy or any number of physical or mental disabilities placed in a position where they cannot get proper or adequate representation or advice in order to pursue their cases. I hope that he will be able to tell us whether he has had direct discussions with organisations such as Leonard Cheshire Disability and Scope; and I hope that before coming to a final conclusion on these issues he certainly will.
My noble friend Lord Wigley was right to remind us at the outset of the increase in the number of complex questions that are now being placed before people who are dealing with disabilities. During my time as a constituency Member of Parliament I, like my noble friend—although we had very different constituencies; one in rural Wales and one in the heart of the city of Liverpool—was confronted again and again, just as the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, was when he worked as a volunteer in legal aid centres or on telephone lines, with complex and difficult questions. The noble Lord, Lord Bach, reminded us that these days the advice runs to more than 7,000 pages in a handbook. It is impossible to deal with these questions when, as we heard, they are incredibly complex and changing day by day, even as your Lordships consider them.
I was struck by a leading article in a Sunday newspaper that commented on the anachronistic nature of your Lordships' House. It went on to say, thank God for these anachronisms because last week in debates on the Welfare Reform Bill it was the anachronistic House of Lords that stood up for the voiceless and powerless people for whom no one else would speak. I suspect that your Lordships will have to perform the same role again.
Baroness O'Loan
My Lords, I support Amendment 32, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey. It is generally acknowledged that attempts by government to simplify the welfare system are to be welcomed because the systems are complex and difficult. Despite the fact that legal aid has been available for appeals against decisions on entitlement, we have seen a very significant lack of take-up of the benefits to which people are entitled. Under the Government’s proposals, that legal aid will no longer be available. It is accepted by the Legal Services Board that dispute resolution and advice in social welfare law requires legal and technical competence. We know from Scope that 39 per cent of appeals against work capability assessments are upheld. Without legal assistance, people simply will not be able to meet the challenges that will enable them to retain the benefits to which they are entitled.
There will be 3.2 million people affected by the change to DLA alone, and 1.8 million will migrate from incapacity benefit to DSA or jobseeker’s allowance. People in those cases may be ill, seriously stressed, living in profoundly difficult circumstances, illiterate or incapable of dealing with correspondence. They may not recognise the importance of attending various assessments or may lose out simply because of their vulnerability. If a family loses the benefits to which it is entitled and cannot access professional help, inevitably there will be very serious consequences such as more children going hungry, not having enough warm clothes for the winter and not having heat in their homes. Parents will have to make appalling choices.
The consequence may be situations in which individuals go to tribunals in cases in which, had they received legal advice, they would have known that they did not have a valid case. A tribunal costs approximately £293. The cost of legal advice to help people in this situation is of the order of £150 to £200. As noble Lords said, there are serious concerns about the consequential increases in the number of cases going to tribunal. Put simply, there are very good financial reasons to continue to provide the current, low-cost legal help.
Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill
Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts(12 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Ramsbotham
My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendment 79B, and also speak in support of the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, who has just spoken very fully about them.
I do not want to detain the House any longer than necessary. My Amendment 79B is merely designed to ensure that the needs of children, and the cases where they need access to legal aid, are included in the section of the schedule about inequality, which without the amendment excludes mention of children. I am sure that the August riots last year alerted us all to the unemployment situation of youngsters, which has been referred to by many noble Lords, and also the alarming alienation from society of too many of our young people.
Many times, in this House, in connection with other Bills, I have quoted the fact that the only raw material that every nation has in common is its people, and woe betide it if it does not do everything it can to identify, nurture and develop the talents of all its people. If it does not, it only has itself to blame if it fails. That means particularly that, in the interests of tomorrow, we must identify, nurture and develop the talents of our young people, because they are our tomorrow.
This weekend I shared the joy that I am sure many other Members of this House share, as I was with an 11 year-old grandson. During the weekend, I reflected that it simply is not reasonable to expect children and young people to negotiate an adult legal system without legal advice, assistance or representation. I also reflected that it is very important to understand the impact of brain development on the competence and problem-solving ability of young people, because that part of the brain develops last. Therefore, their ability to make complex decisions that will affect their future, or ensure their best interests, is the last to emerge. If we are being serious about the long-term future, it must be wrong to do anything wilfully that interrupts that whole process. This particularly applies to children’s access to the very complex legal situations that have been described so graphically by many noble Lords.
I notice that in October 2010, Sarah Teather, the Minister of State for Children and Families, said that the best interests of the child would be a primary consideration in all government legislation. Many other noble Lords have mentioned this Bill’s links to the Welfare Reform Bill, the Health and Social Care Bill and the education Bills. I wonder, and ask the Minister, whether, in the preparation of this clause, there has been full consultation with all the other departments involved about the parts of those Bills that have an impact on children in the light of what the Minister said about the best interests of the child being the primary consideration. As I have listened to what has been said so graphically around the Committee this evening—and I am sure that the Minister has, too—I question whether the measures that the Government are proposing really are in the best interests of the children of this country.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, there are 13 amendments in this group. The Committee will be relieved to know that I intend to speak to only one of them. The thing that links all these amendments is what my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss described earlier as the paramount interests of the child. That is at the heart of what all of us who come to the debate have in mind.
My noble friend Lady O’Loan, in moving Amendment 33, the amendment to which I should like to speak, said that the key issue here was how this legislation and these proceedings would affect the family and the child. I was struck by a letter that appeared in the Times last week, signed by the most reverend Peter Smith, the Archbishop of Southwark. He joined those who have spoken so eloquently in your Lordships’ House this evening in stating that the Bill will, in his words,
“affect thousands of children whose parents are involved in civil cases”.
He went on to warn that,
“the result is likely to be increased long-term public costs and greater suffering”.
The Government have consistently and rightly talked about the importance of responsible parenting in a child’s development. Indeed, when the Prime Minister discussed the structures necessary for giving children the best start in life, he identified them as “strong and secure families” and “confident and able parents”. Yet how can a parent be expected to remain secure or confident when they face debt that could lead to their utilities being cut off; a discrepancy over benefit payments that could leave them unable to pay for the weekly shopping; or even a compensation claim over an injury leaving them unable to work—all without adequate advice or representation? It is perverse that the Government should, on the one hand, rightly emphasise responsible parenting, and then take away the very mechanisms for securing families’ basic legal remedies on the other. The challenges posed by the Bill will be felt sorely enough by individuals in the vast range of situations already mentioned in your Lordships’ House today and in previous debates, some of which I referred to in my Second Reading speech. Such challenges will only be exacerbated for those with dependent children for whom they need to provide and care.
The experience of those working on the front line underscores the fact that for many parents civil legal aid is no less than an essential component in securing legal redress for their families in some of the most serious and threatening cases. It was the magnificent Lord Bingham who once remarked:
“Legal aid is a service which the modern state owes to its citizens as a matter of principle”.
But principle, along with access to justice, seems to have become an early casualty in our sharp-elbowed Britain. The national charity, Housing Justice, emphasises:
“Housing cases involving families and children are frequently lengthy and complicated, so legal aid is vital if justice is to be done”.
It further remarks:
“It is imperative that children in particular … do not have their misery prolonged because of the difficulty in getting legal redress”.
The House needs to consider today the genuine human suffering that thousands of children will face as a direct consequence of restrictions to their parents’ legal aid entitlement.
As we have heard from my noble friend and many others during the debate today, and from people within the charitable sector, the hardship likely to result will be compounded by the simultaneous changes to the social security system. Many of those changes are complex and will leave many of the most vulnerable families more in need than ever of legal support. This has on more than one occasion been described as a “pincer movement” against the United Kingdom’s poorest. Depressingly, it reinforces the impression that we are not all in it together and that only those with sharp elbows will survive.
In researching the likely effects of the Welfare Reform Bill, the Catholic Church’s social action arm, Caritas Social Action Network, heard from a client of the admirable Cardinal Hume Centre in Westminster, only a stone’s throw away from this place. This lady, a single mother of three children, who is currently studying, was asked about the likely impact on her family if she fell victim to the new provisions on the recovery of benefit overpayments. Her response was simple:
“My kids and I would suffer”.
She went on to state:
“I would struggle to buy anything apart from food”.
Were she to find herself in this situation, as many individuals and families are likely to, she would have to face it without the professional advice or support that such complex and technical issues may well necessitate. She would ultimately be left with the choice of trying to challenge a decision herself, balancing this with her studies and with raising her young family, or she would have to take it as a hit without dispute, consequently being left with just enough to put food on the table. I dare say that in some cases parents will be left struggling to do even that. How is this in any sense a fair or just state of affairs?
A very similar case has been drawn to my attention by Caritas in the northern diocese of Salford. It involves another single mother, training to become a beautician, who received a letter regarding an error in her benefit payments which stated that if she did not repay an amount owed her current benefits would stop. In the event, she was able successfully to challenge the decision and continue her training, but once the 135,000 benefit cases each year are taken out of the scope of legal aid how many like her will be left without any suitable recourse? Of course, the impressive work undertaken by the charitable sector will mitigate some of the impact. However, as I said in the earlier debate about disability, from the experience that I have had during my time as patron of a charity dealing with children’s issues I know that it is already overwhelmed, and will be increasingly overwhelmed in the future, especially with the cuts to local government funding and the funding that comes in turn to those voluntary organisations. The sheer volume of cases, many involving a significant degree of complexity, will inevitably leave families falling through the gaps.
I particularly want to draw the Committee’s attention to the Caritas community worker's commentary on the case which I have just mentioned. That caseworker says that the mother,
“is trying to develop a positive future for her family through gaining qualifications that will hopefully lead to employment but the stress of her situation could have harmed these goals”.
The removal of support in such cases will not be a mere inconvenience to parents; it will be a genuine challenge to their best efforts to create a safe and supportive environment for their children to grow up in. In the long run this will, of course, result in significant costs to the state, in economic as well as human terms, as we have heard from my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham and others. Many noble Lords have indicated that they are familiar with research from Citizens Advice, which highlights that for every £1 of legal aid expenditure on benefits advice as much as £8.80 could be saved in public expenditure. In cases involving children who suffer as a result of their parent’s case, the true cost may be far higher. That is penny wise but pound foolish.
Finally, I should like to draw the attention of the House to the devastating effects that the withdrawal of legal aid for immigration cases will have on children. Another study from the Cardinal Hume Centre relates to a client with twin girls, aged three. Legal aid was essential to resolving the immigration issues that had created immense difficulties in securing housing and left her at risk of being split from her children. It seems hard to justify denying support in such situations, which would appear certain once again to result in human suffering and, ultimately, public costs.
As highlighted by noble Lords promoting this and the other amendments, there are many areas beyond benefit cases and immigration cases in which children will be hurt by the provisions of this Bill. I commend the report Not Seen and Not Heard, by Sound Off For Justice and Just Rights, which outlines in detail the worrying scope and scale of all this.
It was Churchill who once said that you measure the degree of civilisation of a society by how it treats its weakest members. Surely that is the test that we should apply when considering the ramifications of the provisions of the Bill. I hope that when he replies to these 13 amendments the Minister will give us some assurance that he will go away and consider further some of the arguments that have been advanced.
Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill
Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts(12 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, was born in inner-city Liverpool. I had the privilege of representing part of that city for 25 years, first as a city councillor and later, as the noble Lord, Lord McNally, knows, as a Member of the House of Commons. Liverpool is one of the more deprived and economically disadvantaged parts of this country. Therefore, not as a lawyer but as someone who knows communities that have been socially disadvantaged and where access to law and justice is crucial, I spoke at Second Reading strongly against the proposals in the Bill.
I want today to support my noble friend's amendment because, like the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, I believe that it goes to the very heart of what the Bill is about. It demands the perfectly possible. It is perfectly possible because it is what we do already. Unlike the noble and learned Lord who has just spoken, I turn the attention of Members of the Committee not to the word “resources” but to what the amendment says at the end. It says,
“that individuals have access to legal services that effectively meet their needs”.
To oppose the amendment and vote it down would be for us to say that people should not have access to legal services that effectively meet their needs. Do we really want to turn the clock back to those pre-1949 days that my noble friend Lord Elystan-Morgan spoke about a few moments ago? We are all aware of the five giant evils that the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, mentioned in his remarks that were identified by Lord Beveridge. It was Hartley Shawcross who, from the Labour Benches in 1949, introduced the legal aid provisions. Hartley Shawcross was the Member of Parliament for another Merseyside seat, St Helens.
By way of illustration, the Liverpool Law Society wrote to me recently about what would happen if the provisions in the Bill were to be enacted, and one of the examples comes from St Helens. It involves a long-distance lorry driver who died of lung cancer after a mistake was made in his diagnosis. The settlement was made with his widow after commissioning significant experts’ fees. Under the new regime, the Liverpool Law Society said that the client,
“would not have been in a position to fund any disbursements to enable an investigation to be taken forward”.
That is only one example of many that I have been given of people who for one reason or another, particularly because of changes to legal aid, would no longer be able to get that crucial access to justice that is available in this country at present.
The Bar Council says that it is,
“profoundly concerned about the impact that the Bill's proposals could have on access to justice, particularly for some of the most vulnerable members of society”.
The point is underlined by the Law Society, which said that,
“the Bill ensures that serious injustice will be done … Clients with physical or mental health deficiencies, or low levels of education, may be unable to resolve their problems in the absence of support through legal aid”.
It is worth reminding the Committee what Lord Justice Jackson said when he examined the proposals and came out very strongly against any cuts in legal aid. He said:
“I … stress the vital necessity of making no further cutbacks in legal aid availability or eligibility … the maintenance of legal aid at no less than present levels makes sound economic sense and is in the public interest … On the assumption that it is decided not to maintain civil legal aid at present levels, the question may possibly arise as to whether any particular area of civil legal aid is particularly important and should be salvaged from the present cuts. My answer to that question is that of all the proposed cutbacks in legal aid, the removal of legal aid from clinical negligence is the most unfortunate”.
We have heard several references to the Committee of your Lordships’ House. The House of Commons Justice Committee stated that the Government are in error in failing to undertake a comprehensive assessment of the knock-on costs arising from the cuts to legal aid. In other words, this is penny-wise but pound-foolish. This is a point borne out by Action Against Medical Accidents. Indeed the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, who spoke so eloquently earlier on, chaired a meeting at which I and other Members of your Lordships’ House, including the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, were present, where Action Against Medical Accidents said that in order to save the Ministry of Justice just £11 million it will cost the NHS at least £14 million and possibly as much as £21 million.
This is what the House of Commons Committee said:
“We are surprised that the Government is proposing to make such changes without assessing their likely impact on spending from the public purse and we call on them to do so before taking a final decision on implementation”.
We still have a chance between now and Report to do that. As the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, said he would be, I will be looking for a signal from the government Front Bench today of reasonableness: a willingness to re-examine whether or not the propositions that have been put to us by the Bar Council, the Law Society, practising lawyers and people who have represented disadvantaged communities hold up and are up to scrutiny. It is in that context that we should return our sights to the amendment before your Lordships today, proposing that,
“individuals should have access to legal services that effectively meet their needs”.
When we come to vote we will be voting on that proposition. Unless I hear from the Front Bench that it is prepared to look at this again between now and Report, I will join my noble friend in the Lobby.
Lord Newton of Braintree
My Lords, it is probably my turn, if my noble former constituent will allow me. I have been stimulated, not for the first time and I hope not for the last, by some of the speeches in this debate. First, the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, reminded me of how grateful I was that, in 18 years as a Minister, nobody ever sent me anywhere near the Home Office. I do not know whether or not I would have withstood it, but I am glad that I did not have to be tested.
Secondly, the speech of my noble friend Lord Carlile was absolutely spot on. I have not had the same experience as he has of being pressurised by the Whips: they have given up on me. I am glad to support him, because we need some signs of movement in the speech that will be made at the end of this debate. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, that I would much prefer it if this amendment were treated as putting down a marker to see what response we get and that we should judge things in the light of what may happen later on with the Bill as well as what is said tonight. In that respect, I have a lot of sympathy with what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, said. But we need something less than irritated intransigence, as my noble friend Lord Carlile put it, from the Ministry of Justice in the way that it responds to the concerns in the Committee. We should make that very clear tonight. In other words, if we do not get some sense of willingness to move then we should return to this on Report. Meanwhile, I look forward very much to a constructive response from my noble friend.
Lord McNally
We will listen and we will ponder. I hope that that will be the spirit in which we conduct the debates. It is certainly not, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, suggested, an attempt to turn the clock back. Even when this exercise is finished, no one could dispute that we will have one of the most generous legal aid schemes in the world. My right honourable friend the Lord Chancellor, in his article in the Guardian, which has been quoted a number of times, says:
“Access to justice is a fundamental part of a properly functioning democracy”.
He goes on to make the point that the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, and a number of others made: “Without legal aid, and”—I emphasise this—
“the dedicated lawyers who deliver it, our system of justice would quite simply collapse”.
That is the starting point.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
The noble Lord, Lord McNally, has just cited the idea that we have the most generous legal aid system anywhere in the world, which he said no one would dispute. During the debate, noble Lords have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, myself and others about what Lord Justice Jackson has said about any further cuts in legal aid. He certainly disputes it, as do surely many others.
Lord McNally
There is absolutely no logic in what the noble Lord has said, with the utmost possible respect—I think that is what you say to each other when you are insulting one another. Lord Justice Jackson may well have a perfectly reasonable opinion that legal aid should not be cut, but it does not follow that, if it is cut, it will not remain the most generous system in the world. There is a non sequitur in what was said. Lord Justice Jackson says that he does not want the present system cut, which is fair enough but, if the system is cut, it will remain the most generous legal aid system in the world.
Community Justice Centre: North Liverpool
Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord McNally
My Lords, it is always dangerous to give even vague dates, like “summer”, in making commitments. The study is still going on. I am confident of the integrity of the research, which is being carried out by Ministry of Justice analysts under the Government social research code. The research will be published by the Ministry of Justice. I think the safest commitment I could make now would be “as soon as possible”
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, before that research is published, will the noble Lord be wary of comparing oranges with apples? What this North Liverpool Community Justice Centre does is very different from other existing systems elsewhere in the country. This is a pioneering scheme. It was introduced on the advice of my noble and learned friend, Lord Woolf, and was opened by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Scotland. Will the noble Lord ensure that their advice is taken into account and that a genuinely independent assessment is made, and that it will be not be abandoned simply for cost-cutting reasons, which may appear prudent at the time, but in the long term might not save anything at all?
Lord McNally
I hear the “hear, hears”, but of course cost does have to come into all these things. I do genuinely believe that this is being looked at. It is a freestanding experiment, as the noble Lord said, based upon the Red Hook Community Justice Center in New York. The truth is that we are looking at various experiments across the piece, some of which were started by the previous Administration, to find out about the effective administration of justice. I can promise that we are looking for legislative time for a justice reform Bill and that we are also looking at justice delivery in the north-west. The inquiry that the noble Lord, Lord Storey, asked about will be seen as a freestanding contribution without prejudice to the decisions that we have to make in that area.
Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill
Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, it must surely remain one of the highest ideals of any society, perhaps its very first duty, to provide equal and unfettered access to justice regardless of economic status. Justice is not a commodity to be rationed. Any legal system which depends on the amount of money that you have before you can seek redress forgoes the right to describe itself as just. Sadly, unless this Bill is significantly amended along the lines suggested by my noble friend Lord Pannick and by many others in your Lordships' House today, these proposals will be judged as a huge assault on access to justice.
Specifically, I want to speak about the changes to legal aid and to success fees, and the deleterious impact which these changes will have on victims of personal injury and on claimants who have modest means. I particularly regret that the Government did not accept amendments in another place to retain legal aid in cases of clinical negligence and have chosen to ignore significant and broad-based opposition, which includes the Judges’ Council and the Lord Chief Justice.
I take as my starting point the Bar Council's assertion that it is profoundly concerned about the impact that the Bill's proposals could have on access to justice, particularly for some of the most vulnerable members of society. It says that access to justice will be replaced by do-it-yourself justice; that access to justice will be seen as an unaffordable luxury; that there will be a concomitant and inevitable short and long-term decline in the availability of quality advocacy services. That point is underlined by the Law Society, which says that the Bill ensures that serious injustice will be done and that clients with physical or mental health difficulties or low levels of education may be unable to resolve their problems in the absence of support through legal aid.
Take the specific example highlighted by Tony Whitston of the Asbestos Victim Support Group, who vividly points out that mesothelioma sufferers will have to bear their share of risks by paying up to 25 per cent of their damages for pain and suffering in legal costs. That should be simply be unconscionable. Many learned jurists from Lord Bingham to Hartley Shawcross have been quoted in our debates today. Let me rely instead on the Greek philosopher, Thucydides, who proclaimed:
“Justice will not come . . . until those who are not injured are as indignant as those who are injured.”
For those who have contracted mesothelioma, or who are in the position of the lady who spoke with such dignity at a meeting here last week about the life which lies ahead of her in bringing up a brain-damaged baby, we in this House need to be indignant on their behalf; indignant at the prospect that recourse to law will in future be denied them; indignant that their damages may be swallowed up in meeting legal costs. Forcing mesothelioma sufferers—many of us who have been constituency Members of Parliament will have met victims, whose life expectancy is nine to 12 months from diagnosis—to surrender as much as 25 per cent of damages, which average about £65,000, because of austerity measures or charges of ambulance-chasing or compensation culture or the bad practice of some claims management companies, is cruel and unjust.
I would particularly like to draw the attention of the House to a case involving the president of the Liverpool Law Society, Mr Norman Jones; a case which ended in the Supreme Court and is known to the noble Lord, Lord Bach. Hugely significant in the development of the common law concerning mesothelioma, the judgment has given hope to many thousands of asbestos victims who probably would not be entitled to compensation had the Supreme Court appeal by the defendants not been dismissed.
The judgment in Sienkiewicz v Greif (UK) Ltd was given in the Supreme Court in March this year. Mr. Jones handled the action under a conditional fee agreement. There were CFAs for the County Court proceedings, the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court. Norman Jones tells me that without the 100 per cent success fee payable under the CFAs, the risks of the handling this case would have been totally beyond his firm. Putting it bluntly, he says, had it lost, his firm may have been facing bankruptcy. It is not only the claimant who will suffer—so will many of their representatives. Small practices and single-handed solicitors working in disadvantaged cities and regions are likely to be the most badly affected by these proposals.
Donal Bannon, the director of the Liverpool Law Society says that Liverpool is one of the most deprived cities in Europe and that the impact of the proposed reforms will have a disproportionate effect there. I asked the Liverpool Law Society for more examples and it sent me several. They include a medical negligence case, a vicious-circle case involving an unemployed drug addict, where no one is willing to bear cost liability for an expert witness, and children's cases that they say would simply be out of the reach of anyone but the very rich without public funding. It says that the idea that mediation can resolve all these matters is delusional. One of its member solicitors says that if we want a society where only the rich can litigate, then we are certainly heading in the right direction.
This is why the Bill represents a huge assault on access to justice. Lord Justice Jackson stressed the importance of making no further cuts to the availability of legal aid, specifically in the case of medical negligence. He stressed,
“the vital necessity of making no further cutbacks in legal aid availability or eligibility … the maintenance of legal aid at no less than present levels makes sound . . . sense and is in the public interest ... On the assumption that it is decided not to maintain civil legal aid at present levels, the question may possibly arise as to whether any particular area of civil legal aid is particularly important and should be salvaged from the present cuts. My answer to that question is that of all the proposed cutbacks in legal aid, the removal of legal aid from clinical negligence is the most unfortunate”.
If we are right to be indignant about the removal of legal aid in cases of personal injury, spare a thought, too, for the impact of the Bill on children. The Bar Council says that 68,000 children and young people will be affected by the withdrawal of legal aid and that 54,000 fewer people will be legally represented annually in the family courts. The Children's Society, which works with more than 50,000 children a year, bears this out. It says that it is concerned that the changes will affect the poorest and most vulnerable families, including,
“children who will suffer as a knock on effect of limited access to justice for their parents or carers”,
for reasons such as,
“parental disability, language barriers, poverty and mental health issues”.
I have a non-pecuniary interest as patron of the National Association of Child Contact Centres which, over the past year, has worked with more than 9,000 families 15,000 children and delivered 30,000 hours of contact. Many of those who work in the centres do a wonderful job in helping families to settle their differences and move on, without the courts or lawyers being involved—something of which I know the Government would approve. However, NACCC has flagged up its concern that this Bill will result in a big increase in the number of self-referrals that it will have to deal with: It says that many will be inappropriate and beyond its mandate, resources or its capacity. It says:
“This in turn creates extra work in terms of gathering information, assessing that information and then arranging, monitoring and reviewing contacts. To make matters worse, all of this is happening at a time when many of our Centres are already dealing with record numbers of referrals and managing ever increasing waiting lists to access their services”.
The prospect is already having a disastrous impact. NACCC cites one co-ordinator who left a centre in Norfolk recently and who said, “I am a volunteer—the amount of work and the level of responsibility that goes with it is now simply too much”. The centre had been running for 15 years but has closed because no one else was prepared to take on that role of co-ordinator.
Whether it is a victim of domestic violence or abuse about which we have rightly heard a great deal today, the position of a remote indigenous people living in a rainforest seeking redress against a British company, the mother of a brain-damaged baby or a man dying of mesothelioma, the same principle of being able to seek the righting of a wrong must apply.
As the Bill currently stands, it will significantly further restrict the scope of legal aid, it could leave the United Kingdom in breach of our human rights obligations, it may well create a chaotic situation in our courts, put conditional fee arrangements out of the reach of most people and save a lot less than the Government have speculated. Above all, Parts 1 and 2 of the Bill fail the ultimate test: does the Bill ensure access to justice regardless of wealth or means? Clearly, the answer is no. There can be no talk of equal access to justice if it is becomes dependent on the amount of money a person has. It is about that that this House should be indignant.
Loan Companies: Interest Rates
Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Baroness Wilcox
The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, has covered three big items. I know what an expert he is on the last one, so I will leave that for the moment. This Government and the previous Government have looked again and again at capping interest rates, but our worry has always been that that would push people towards illegal money lending. We then do not know when they are in trouble and they can be treated very violently. Even looking to see whether we should be changing this in any way is a new venture for us. The noble Lord is absolutely right in his second point. People should have the right information on which to base their choices.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
Has the Minister seen the latest figures for personal debt, showing that a staggering £1,450 billion is owed in personal debt by the nation at the present time? If it is right—and it is—to reduce national debt, should we not be doing far more to help families who are massively in debt in Britain today, especially through the promotion of credit unions?
Baroness Wilcox
We have tried and continue to try to see how we can get people to set up credit unions. They are so popular in America, Australia, Canada and Ireland, but we just do not seem to like them in this country. However, we are continuing to struggle to do that. The noble Lord is right about total household debt: £1.45 trillion is an enormous figure, but of that £1.24 trillion is owed on mortgages. We are a real country for buying our own houses and taking out mortgages. The amount left over is the money owed on personal loans, credit cards and high-cost credit. For this, we must make absolutely sure that people have the right information before they get themselves into difficult situations.
Justice: North Liverpool Community Justice Centre
Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, in assessing the effectiveness of the North Liverpool Community Justice Centre, will the Minister pay particular tribute to His Honour Judge David Fletcher, who has shown formidable and robust leadership as the single judge administering this system? Inasmuch as the Minister has already referred to the reduction in the time between arrest and sentencing, will he also say a word about the role of restorative justice in repairing the wrong done to victims, in which this court has shown such leadership?
Lord McNally
Indeed, Judge Fletcher describes his approach as gripping—meaning that he is able, through this system, to deal holistically with the problems. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, is right about restorative justice, which is not unique to the Liverpool experiment. Much of the evidence that we have received shows that there is benefit both to the victim, who gets some closure in the trauma they have gone through, and to the defendant, who receives a form of punishment that points in the direction of rehabilitation as well. I also have to say that in the experiments we are conducting, we have to look at the cost of the facilities as well as the various benefits they bring.
Human Rights: Spending Cuts
Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts(13 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord McNally
My Lords, I think that I can give no better answer than to quote a speech by the Foreign Secretary on 15 September—a speech which I commend to all Members of this House. In it, he said:
“There will be no downgrading of human rights under this Government”.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, given the speech of the Foreign Secretary at Lincoln’s Inn—I welcome what he said there—will the Minister, as he looks at the comprehensive spending review, also examine the excellent proposals of the Conservative Party’s commission on human rights, which were published a few months ago? It detailed some very good proposals, including creating a designated Minister, rather than one who has nine or 10 other responsibilities, to deal specifically with human rights.
Lord McNally
Ministerial responsibilities are of course for my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, but one of the refreshing things about the coalition Government is that we have been able to draw on thinking in these areas from both parties that make up the coalition and, indeed, from the work that the noble Lord, Lord Wills, did when he was in office and the review that was undertaken just before leaving that office. Our approach, certainly, will be to draw on good advice from many sources.