Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012: Part 1
Lord Bach Excerpts(10 years, 10 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)
My Lords, post-legislative scrutiny of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 will take place, as is normal, three to five years after Royal Assent. However, the Ministry of Justice will carry out a variety of exercises to monitor the impact of the Act from now on.
Lord Bach
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister. However, does the evidence available not point clearly to a world where not-for-profit organisations will be decimated, and their clients—often the poor, disadvantaged and sometimes disabled—will no longer have access to legal advice? Just look at what is happening already. Birmingham Law Centre is closing, the well renowned Mary Ward Centre in London, which had 800 welfare benefit cases last year, has precisely nought at the moment, and Coventry Law Centre—I declare my interest as patron of that organisation, which has a superb reputation—has had to turn away from reception at least 350 people who had housing, immigration, debt, employment and family legal issues. I put it to the Minister that this is not good enough for a country that, until this legislation, could pride itself that its legal system tried to be fair to everyone. What are the Government going to do about it?
Lord McNally
My Lords, the Act has been in force for 99 days. It is difficult to get an accurate picture of what is happening in this sector because of a surge of applications before 1 April. However, as I said, the department is carrying out a variety of checks and researches on the impact and we will keep a careful study of what happens.
Legal Aid
Lord Bach Excerpts(10 years, 10 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)
My Lords, the reasoning behind the proposed changes is that they will ensure that contract holders have enough certainty about work volumes so that efficiencies and economies of scale are achievable. However, we are carefully considering the consultation responses to this proposal.
Lord Bach
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his Answer and confess to being somewhat—a little—encouraged by it. The choice of lawyer is an essential part of our criminal justice system, as of course is the presumption of innocence. Does the Minister agree with his right honourable friend the Lord Chancellor’s justification of the proposal to abolish choice of lawyer, given in a recent interview in the Law Society Gazette? That seemed to be based on the absurd principle of “too thick to pick”. Or, does he agree with his right honourable friend the Deputy Prime Minister and leader of his own party, who is quoted as saying last weekend that it would be “perverse” to go ahead with this proposal? He cannot agree with both. What is the Government’s position?
Lord McNally
The Government’s position is that we put forward a model for competition, as proposed in our transformed legal aid consultation. That said that the client would generally have no choice in the provider allocated to them but that, in exceptional circumstances, a client might be permitted to change their provider. We put that matter out for consultation. As I indicated in my Answer, we are now considering the responses to the consultation and will come forward with further proposals.
British Bill of Rights
Lord Bach Excerpts(10 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Bach
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate, particularly, of course, the noble Lord, Lord Lester, for securing the debate and for attracting a stellar cast to speak, even rather late on a Thursday afternoon in the middle of June. I am certainly not one of those stars. I have comparatively little history, either as lawyer or politician, with regard to the Human Rights Act or the convention. However, it is an honour for me to speak from the opposition Front Bench on this occasion and I, too, pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Lester, for his well deserved reputation, mentioned by many noble Lords, in this field.
I start with a quotation from another memorable debate in your Lordships’ House, held exactly 25 months ago on 19 May 2011, when my noble and learned friend Lord Irvine of Lairg led a debate on the ECHR, with many of the same cast as today, and answered, as today, by the noble Lord, Lord McNally. The noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, ended his contribution with these words:
“I consider the Human Rights Act 1998 to be the outstanding piece of legislation of the previous Labour Government”.
He went on to say, and we must give him allowance for this,
“next to the Government of Wales Act 1998. I congratulate the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, not simply on introducing the debate but on being the architect of an important piece in the structure of justice in our country”.—[Official Report, 19/5/11; col. 1501.]
That was a generous but well merited comment from the noble Lord, and a well merited compliment to my noble and learned friend as well.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the establishment of Charter 88, many of the aspirations of which were adopted by my party in the early 1990s and then put into effect by the Government from 1997 on. Who says that pressure groups cannot achieve results? According to Professor Bogdanor the constitutional achievements of the Labour Government, ranging from the Human Rights Act to devolution, freedom of information, the creation of the Supreme Court, and much more, represent a formidable list. He may go too far when he says that it was an era of constitutional reform comparable to that of the years of the Great Reform Act 1832 or the Parliament Act 1911. However, even more impressive is the amount of power that was given away by some of these measures by that Labour Government. For example, the Human Rights Act gave power to individuals, the national states were given power by devolution and the judiciary was given power by the difference between the role of the Lord Chief Justice and that of the Lord Chancellor and by the creation of the Supreme Court. Professor Bogdanor went on to say that no British Government since World War II had dispersed power to the same extent.
Speaking from the Opposition Front Bench, I am proud of that record. It made our country a fairer, more open and better place to live. We were supported in all this—certainly for the most part—both in argument and votes by the Minister’s party, the Liberal Democrats. Both party manifestos for the 2010 general election talked about support for the Human Rights Act; the Liberal Democrats’ manifesto talked about protecting the Human Rights Act. It is therefore hardly surprising that when the Liberal Democrats found themselves in a coalition Government they had to think hard and quickly about how to prevent the Human Rights Act and the ECHR behind it being savaged by their coalition partner during the course of this Parliament.
Make no mistake: both before 2010 and since being in power, of course not all Conservatives but many of their leaders have regularly and systematically tried to trash both the convention and the Human Rights Act. They have often used language—perhaps sometimes to placate their anti-European supporters—that has sometimes, though not always, been a disgrace to a great party.
Rather unusually for me, I will pay a compliment to Liberal Democrat Ministers in this Government, and not least—in fact, probably for the most part—to the noble Lord, Lord McNally, for the manner in which he, along with others, has successfully prevented the Conservatives from carrying out constitutional mayhem during this Parliament. I do not know whose idea a commission on the Bill of Rights originally was, and who put together the personnel. However, if the aim was to kick these proposals deep into the long grass, it appears to have succeeded.
I pay tribute to all members and staff of the commission, particularly its chairman, for giving up so much of their valuable time to its work. Many of its members were busy and distinguished Queen’s Counsel, while others had other important obligations. They deserve our thanks; not least the chairman, who has already been described in Job-like terms and whose distinguished career in public service must have helped him in an almost impossible task. However—and I suspect that the House might have expected a “however” at this stage—it is surely fair to ask whether it was really worth all the time and effort to produce two large volumes of a report in effect to solve a political problem?
Where do the various and myriad conclusions lead us? What is the value of the so-called majority view, when it includes a number who clearly and honestly objected to the terms of reference and want us to be free of the convention? I admit that I do not completely understand the position of the noble Lord, Lord Lester, who is himself one of the architects of the Human Rights Act. When reading the 31—
Lord Lester of Herne Hill
I am grateful to the noble Lord. I wonder whether he agrees that it is core Labour Party policy since 1993 that a Human Rights Act is the first step, and a Bill of Rights the second. That was agreed by Labour in 1993, and as far as I am aware it is still Labour Party policy.
Lord Bach
As I understand it, the Human Rights Act is considered by some to be a British Bill of Rights in any event. However, I do not want to take issue with the noble Lord. I am here to praise him rather than criticise him. As I was going to say, when reading the 31 pages of the overview of volume 1, one can almost physically feel the strain in the language as it attempts desperately to find consensus where there is none. The majority view has been described as representing,
“a fragile coalition of views united around conceptions of a domestic Bill of Rights so different from one another as to render any consensus wholly illusory”.
These are the words of Mark Elliott, a reader in politics at the University of Cambridge, whose article is entitled, A Damp Squib in the Long Grass. This is perhaps a little harsh, but I think one senses what he is getting at. No wonder Professor Fenwick at the University of Durham described the document, perhaps rather generously, as “odd”. For me, the paper In Defence of Rights, by my noble friend Lady Kennedy and Professor Sands, is more persuasive. It destroys the confused majority view with a pretty well argued, moderate and sensible position.
The commission report has of course effectively stymied any change until after the 2015 general election. It is only when we know the result of that election and what will follow from it that we can realistically move forward. I would expect the Liberal Democrats to be every bit as robust in their defence of the Human Rights Act as I hope my party will also be.
I want to end on a perhaps rather less consensual note. I am afraid that the Liberal Democrats’ effective defence of the Human Rights Act and the convention is in marked contrast to the feebleness and lack of concern for the individual citizen evident in their acquiescence to—and sometimes even welcome for—some of the more reactionary measures that Her Majesty’s Government have recently taken. I of course refer to the restrictions either passed or proposed on judicial review, the no-win no-fee policy, and the position that private firms doing public work on public contracts may be exempt from freedom of information. Above all, I must say, it is evident in the decimation of social welfare law by taking it outside the scope of legal aid. It is no answer to say that citizens are still able in theory to go to law, because the reality is that without free legal advice, the poor and the marginalised in practice cannot go to law. Human rights exist outside the Human Rights Act. By limiting and restricting the ability of the citizen to take on the state, the Liberal Democrats are colluding in particularly anti-liberal acts.
I conclude by saying to the Minister that he has nobly protected the Human Rights Act in very difficult circumstances and that his part of the Government deserves great credit for that. Now is the time to protect the interests of individual citizens who need to take on the state. They, too, like those protected by the Human Rights Act, are an essential part of those who live in a free society.
Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (Amendment of Schedule 1) Order 2013
Lord Bach Excerpts(11 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Bach
To move, as an amendment to the above Motion, at end to insert, “but this House regrets that Her Majesty’s Government have responded to the opinion of this House, as expressed in a vote on 3 December 2012 on a fatal motion in respect of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (Amendment of Schedule 1) Order 2012 on inadequate provision for legal aid in first tier tribunal cases, by bringing forward this order which excludes even that limited provision.”
Lord Bach
My Lords, I hope to move this regret Motion in an entirely non-partisan manner, because this matter in my view affects the whole House and its reputation and it is not meant in any sense as an attack on the Minister, who has been on the side of the good within the department in trying to make sure that this ghastly Act of Parliament was modified.
Some noble Lords may remember the background to this state of affairs and others will not, so I hope that the House will forgive me if I set out as briefly as I can what has happened and why I believe that, in this case, the Government have behaved in a manner that has offended both against the constitutional arrangements that bind our country together and, importantly, against a small group of our fellow citizens who have been deprived of a legal right that they were promised by the Government.
The story begins on 17 April last year, when, in another place at the ping-pong stage, the then Lord Chancellor made an important concession to ensure that the LASPO Bill got through. An amendment had been put forward there to allow legal aid for welfare benefit reviews and hearings, supporting an amendment already agreed in this House and moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey. To prevent that amendment succeeding, the Lord Chancellor made it clear that Her Majesty’s Government would compromise and allow legal aid for legal advice at First-tier Tribunals in cases where a point of law arose. He wanted time to ask his department about the best way of implementing the pledge. He was given that time, in due course the Bill became law, and we waited for the pledge to be implemented.
A Written Ministerial Statement appeared on 18 September last year. Surprisingly, this Statement did not announce how the major concession, which had been pledged by the Lord Chancellor, had been put into effect. Instead, in its place, a new—I would say minor—concession was announced that would affect many fewer people but would arise in a limited number of cases before the First-tier Tribunal. These were called errors of law cases, and according to a parliamentary Written Answer given to me by the Minister on 23 November last year, there were 692 errors of law cases in the year 2011-12, and 173 between April and June 2012. Of course, not every case would involve legal aid being granted, but—this is important in my submission—some would. If no one was to benefit, why would the Government have put forward this minor concession at all?
As the Minister just told us, on 3 December last year, the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act (Amendment of Schedule 1) Order 2012, which included the minor concession, was debated in your Lordships’ House. I tabled an amendment that declined to support the regulation because, first, it did not fulfil the Government’s undertaking in the Commons on 17 April and, secondly, it would mean that claimants would not receive legal help on a point of law. The debate followed. It was crystal clear that all those who spoke in favour wanted the Government to withdraw the regulation and come back with something a little more generous. They were definitely not arguing for there to be no concession of any kind, which would have been an absurd position for them to have taken. We were saying to the Government, “Keep your word, and if you can’t do that, come back with something a bit more generous”. My amendment was supported by speeches from around the House, including those of the noble and learned Lords, Lord Woolf and Lord Goldsmith, and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick; and, from the Liberal Democrat Benches, those of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, and other noble Lords. In the event, the Government refused to do what was asked, and the regulation was defeated, by 2,001 votes to 191.
Lord Bach
My Lords, I apologise—it is nearly the end of term. I meant 201 votes to 191. I was about to say, that in the somewhat heightened minutes before the vote was held, which were a good deal more heightened than they are at present, the Minister warned—or, to use another expression, threatened—that a vote against the regulation would not necessarily result in a better offer. He did so in such a way, if I may say so, that some noble Lords may even have been swayed to vote for my amendment and against the regulation.
The Government did not decide there and then not to come back with a further regulation. Indeed, on 18 December, 15 days after our debate and just before the Christmas Recess, the Minister’s Secretary of State—now the Lord Chancellor—the right honourable Chris Grayling, was asked in the Commons at Justice Questions about this very point. My honourable friend Andrew Slaughter MP said:
“The proposals finally brought forward were so inadequate that two weeks ago their lordships voted them down and told him to come up with something better. Now we hear that the Secretary of State, in a fit of pique, intends to do nothing at all. Why is he breaking a promise to Parliament and to some of the most destitute and vulnerable people in the country?”.
The Lord Chancellor replied:
“As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, we have promised to consider the decision by the Lords. I was a little surprised to see the rather unusual step taken in the other place of voting down a statutory instrument that was granting a concession, but we will of course review the issue and decide how to proceed”.—[Official Report, Commons, 18/12/12; col. 694.]
In the new year, on 8 January in this House, the Minister, in reply to an Oral Question, said that the Government would not be putting forward another regulation.
As so often in this House, the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, who cannot be in his place today, put the killer question that, in my view, the Minister cannot answer. He asked:
“Given that the House rejected as inadequate the limited concession on legal aid in First-tier Tribunals, is it not truly perverse for the Government to respond by withdrawing even that?”.—[Official Report, 8/1/13; col. 13.]
Why is the Government’s behaviour so perverse? Why am I arguing that their line, not to put forward another regulation, is so wrong? It is for two reasons. The first is the constitutional offence that has been caused to Parliament. The Executive are supposed to be subject to Parliament. Parliament’s wish that a more generous concession was required was clearly expressed on 3 December; it cannot be more clearly expressed than by a vote of a House of Parliament. The House voted for this.
The Government could have brought back their minor concession if they had wanted to. For them to refuse to bring back anything else is—I choose my words with some care—treating Parliament with contempt. It is saying to Parliament, “We are the masters, not you. We don’t care what you say, we will do what we want”. I liken it to the behaviour of a spoilt child who cannot get his way. The conduct is more that of a playground bully than a mature, grown-up, confident, democratic Government. What has happened here is dishonourable, and my amendment rejects this behaviour.
The second reason, which is perhaps as serious, is that two groups of people who were led to believe that they might get legal aid for advice for First-tier Tribunals—those with a point of law and those in error-of-law cases—have had their legitimate expectations removed by Her Majesty’s Government without any consultation. Why? For the first group, the Government would cite the cost and say that they could not afford the major concession offered by the right honourable Kenneth Clarke in April last year, but what is the reason for this second group? It is not a big group, but it undoubtedly includes some people. Is cost the reason? We have never been told the cost of this minor concession. Or is it—I am afraid to say—just plain spite? That is unattractive in an individual and just not acceptable in a Government. This meanness of spirit is and should be offensive to this House and to the wider world.
I feel strongly that the civil legal aid cuts that will come in on 1 April, in a few days’ time, will demean the reputation of our legal system. I feel even more strongly that in this limited case—I do not want to claim more for it than actually exists—the behaviour of the Government towards Parliament, towards this House in particular and towards its citizens is unacceptable. I beg to move.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
I am sorry to intervene again on my noble friend, but it is not fair to say that the tribunals introduced a lawyer-free zone. The point of this debate is that it is in respect of issues of law in relation to tribunals that advice is plainly needed from lawyers. That is ineluctable.
Lord Bach
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. I thank in particular the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, for his remarks. If the word “spite” offends him because it is rather overblown—rather like the number I claimed for a previous amendment—I apologise. I do not want to overblow this but I want to make the point. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Beecham for his remarks on the general issue around legal aid that this House discussed over many months. He is absolutely right. When Part 1 of this Act comes into force next Monday, it will be a day of shame for our legal system because—I am sorry to use this phrase again—access to justice for the poor, disabled and marginalised will, in many cases, effectively disappear because they will lack the ability to get the advice—
Lord McNally
Will the noble Lord give way to allow me to make one point? I know that he wants to make a political point.
Lord McNally
Well, all right, he wants to make a point. I was at a call centre on aid the other day. I listened to one call in which a lady said, “I know that they are bringing this legal aid to an end”. That is what worries me. I know that criticisms have to be strongly put but we must not make people think that we are ending legal aid. At the end of this process, we will be spending £1.7 billion on legal aid. We will still have a substantial amount of taxpayers’ money going into welfare legal aid. By all means attack the decisions but do not leave people with the idea that legal aid is not available, because it is.
Lord Bach
I am grateful to the Minister, and I am grateful for what he said earlier. There is £1.7 billion left, of which approximately £1.2 billion is spent on criminal legal aid, which leaves for civil legal aid—including public family law and asylum law, which remain in scope—precisely £500 million. Social welfare law was always a small part of the legal aid budget. It is now going to be a tiny part of it. That is my criticism of the measure. It is bad for the high reputation of our legal system.
For the moment, that battle has been lost, but only for the time being. I do not share the Minister’s pessimism that no future Government, perhaps even a Liberal Democrat Government, will bring back some sort of proper legal aid in social welfare law. That may well happen. I know that this House, in its heart of hearts, regrets what is happening on 1 April. However, my amendment to the Motion does not seek to turn back that clock but to point out a particular act of what I consider to be meanness by the Government towards that very small group of people that the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, mentioned. It is also, if I may say so, an insult to Parliament.
The Minister is absolutely right about fatal Motions. They should be used sparingly. But when such a Motion is passed by a House of Parliament, as was the case on 3 December last year, it is incumbent on a democratic Government to take some notice of it rather than just dismiss it. I pray in aid the last time it happened in this House on 28 March 2007, almost exactly six years ago, when the Labour Government’s gambling order was defeated in this House. How did the Government respond? They responded effectively by changing their policy as a consequence of that decision. I do not ask the Government to change their policy. I just ask them not to take—
Lord McNally
I am sorry to intervene and I do not want to prolong the debate. However, as the noble Lord knows, I was intimately involved in the passing of that fatal Motion, which stopped the super-casino going to Manchester. The outcome of that Motion was that the Government did not bring back their proposal. That is exactly what has happened again.
Lord McNally
Oh yes; it is four-square. The House took a decision and the decision stood. That was the case with the decision made on legal aid.
Lord Bach
I do not think that the Minister can really get away with that. The Government changed their policy as a consequence of the House of Lords vote. On this occasion, the Government have said, “We don’t like what the House of Lords have said. Therefore, we’ll do quite the opposite of what they wanted to happen”. However, let us not retreat into history; let us talk about today.
If my amendment is agreed, the regulations presented by the noble Lord will go through, of course, and the Act will come into force on 1 April in any event. However, if the House agrees to the amendment, it will show that it has some distaste for the way in which the Government have behaved in this instance. In my view, the Government have not behaved well here and the House should, in its gentle way by a Motion of Regret, just say that.
Justice: Legal Advice
Lord Bach Excerpts(11 years, 2 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)
My Lords, these matters were assessed as part of the impact assessments, which were published alongside the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012.
Lord Bach
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply as far as it goes but I do not think it is very full on detail. It is now only 21 days until civil legal aid effectively disappears, affecting access to justice for perhaps hundreds of thousands of people every year. What do Her Majesty’s Government think will happen to the disabled person, for example, who wants to appeal his or her Atos decision, or the person who needs housing advice but cannot get it because the local Shelter housing advice centre has been forced to close, as today’s newspapers report? What are the Government’s contingency plans when unadvised and unrepresented clients flood courts and tribunals? No one can say the Government have not been warned, all the way from the very top of the legal system to small charities that are at breaking point. What will the Government do when it all goes wrong?
Lord McNally
My Lords, we are working on some of these issues. We are working with the judiciary to improve guidelines for people representing themselves in court. We are developing a new online information service to help people find out if they are eligible for legal aid or signpost them to other services. We are giving £65 million of funding to help not-for-profit social welfare advice providers to adapt and transition over the next two years. We are also encouraging innovations in the legal services market, such as the provision of lower-cost advice services to help people in resolving their problems.
Legal Services Commission
Lord Bach Excerpts(11 years, 3 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)
My Lords, the Legal Services Commission decided to cease the Community Legal Service grants programme following careful consideration of all the issues involved and a public consultation exercise. These grant-funded projects and activities do not necessarily provide direct advice to the individuals eligible for legal aid. Following the Government’s legal aid reforms, the commission’s focus must be on providing advice to clients who qualify for legal aid through its contracted providers.
Lord Bach
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his Answer, but is it not rather depressing that these three highly respected and proven organisations are no longer to receive any public funding and are being put at some risk, and all for £650,000 per year? I am sure the Minister will agree that they all have a superb record over many years of helping often poor and disadvantaged people to obtain access to justice. Is it just coincidence that these changes to legal aid are coming at precisely the same time as radical reform of the welfare system is about to begin or is it, as seems much more likely to some of us, deliberate government policy to link these two things together so that if mistakes are made as a result of welfare reform—as they will be—there will cease to be any effective legal remedy for many people?
Lord McNally
My Lords, I am always fascinated by the way in which the noble Lord dismisses £650,000 as a mere bagatelle, but let us also look at the facts. This scheme for funding such bodies was introduced in 2000 and the three bodies in this consultation were awarded three-year contracts at the end of the previous Administration. Since then, we have twice extended their contracts by one year so that what was originally a three-year contract became a five-year contract. However, as I have explained to the House before, I am afraid that we have to concentrate limited funds on bodies that are giving sharp-end legal aid advice. These three bodies, particularly the Advice Services Alliance and the local Law Centres Network, are umbrella bodies that do not give such advice. Therefore, although in happier days they could win such contracts and do such work, there is simply no money.
Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (Amendment of Schedule 1) Order 2012
Lord Bach Excerpts(11 years, 4 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)
My Lords, as I made clear before the House voted on 3 December, if the fatal Motion was carried, the LASPO Act would not provide legal aid in the cases specified in the rejected statutory instrument. That remains the case.
Lord Bach
Does the Minister understand that that Answer is entirely unsatisfactory and does no credit to the Government? This House declined to accept the order because it represented a breach of a government undertaking given to another place to get the legal aid Bill through and because what it offered was too mean. Why are the Government taking absolutely no notice of the will of this House of Parliament? Are they not behaving more like a spoilt child than a mature, responsible Government, protecting the legal rights of some of the poorest citizens under their care, including many with disabilities?
Crime and Courts Bill [HL]
Lord Bach Excerpts(11 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Goldsmith
My Lords, I, too, support this amendment. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew of Twysden, has underlined what is critical on this amendment, which I very much hope the Government will consider. It is right that they will be considering this amendment between now and Third Reading.
There are two points. One is the practicality of the arrangements which the amendment proposes: they cannot be doubted. Arrangements for the appointment of the chief executive which include the president of our Supreme Court and the arrangements provided by the Civil Service rules seems to me undoubtedly to be a very proper way of proceeding. One cannot doubt that it will be effective. Certainly, the ad hoc way that the present chief executive was appointed was very successful. I had the privilege to have Miss Jenny Rowe working in my office for some time while I was Attorney-General; they could not have hoped for a better first chief executive.
So there can be no objection in principle by the Government to this proposal; and there is every reason in principle why they should want to see this amendment accepted. It is this worrying question of perception—is the Supreme Court really independent? I recall, in one of your Lordships’ committee rooms a long time ago, explaining to a group of Argentinian politicians, I think, how it came about that a decision had been made in relation to General Pinochet by the Judicial Committee of your Lordships’ House. I explained that the committee was entirely independent and that it was called a Judicial Committee, of professional judges, appointed to that role, who had no political affiliation. They nodded wisely and at the end of it all and said, “So why did the Government let it happen?”.
And that is the problem. If we have these apparent connections between Parliament, judges, the Lord Chancellor who is a serving Minister and now is really only a political Minister, and the court, people will think, “Ah, well, there must be some string-pulling going on”. We must remove all of those suggestions, and therefore I strongly support this amendment. I understand that it will not be moved to a vote this evening, but I very much hope that it will not be necessary to move it to a vote on a future occasion, because the Government will accept it.
Lord Bach
My Lords, in bringing up the rear, as it were, on this point, I will be very brief. I was the junior Minister with some responsibility for the Supreme Court while the building was being refurbished and finished. It was exciting to see noble and learned Lords in their hard hats going around the building as it was being refurbished. It has developed into an extraordinarily effective court which is a great credit to all those involved in it and is now a natural part of our constitutional settlement. I was also a Minister when the Supreme Court was actually opened. That, too, was an exciting time. I have a lasting interest in how the Supreme Court functions. I strongly support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, as it seems to me to go to an issue of independence. The independence of that court is of supreme importance, if I may use the expression. It is very important that the general public and the world outside understand that that court is at the very top of the British judicial system and is independent of the Executive in every way. That is why I support the amendment.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, I rise briefly to place on record the full support of the Opposition for this amendment. I hope that the Government will accept its spirit, if not the precise wording, today. It seems to set the final stone in the arch, as it were, of the construction of the Supreme Court. It clearly makes sense and I endorse entirely the observations of noble and learned Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and my noble friend Lord Bach.
Civil Legal Aid (Merits Criteria) Regulations 2012
Lord Bach Excerpts(11 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Bach
My Lords, I rise to support the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, in the amendment that he has just moved, and also to speak to my Motion which I will move at the appropriate place. Before I speak to my amendment, perhaps I may say that I support unreservedly the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, to the Civil Legal Aid (Merits Criteria) Regulations. All noble Lords who have had the benefit of listening to his speech will have seen the logic and force of what he had to say. I suspect that there is no serious argument but that he is correct. I look forward, if it is necessary, to supporting him in the Lobby later on.
What I am doing with my Motion is to ask the Minister to withdraw the order that I have prayed against—namely the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (Amendment of Schedule 1) Order 2012—so that it can be reconsidered as a fresh order when it is laid again. I am not seeking to go behind the Act of Parliament. I still believe that many parts of it are entirely wrong and an enormous mistake, but whether I like it or not, Parliament has passed it. It will come into force on 1 April 2013 and we will have to see what the consequences are, but that is not the point today.
Lord Bach
With the greatest of diffidence, I rise to try to explain the situation as I see it. The respect I have for the noble and learned Lord is well known. My understanding is that what the Government propose comes at the end of the First-tier Tribunal hearing. Therefore, leading up to the First-tier Tribunal, whether or not on a point of law, there would be no advice at all to the appellant. During the tribunal hearing there would be no advice to the appellant. Only if the appellant after the event decides to ask for facts and reasons and, after that, puts in a notice of appeal, will there be the slightest chance that he might get legal aid at that stage.
Lord Mackay of Clashfern
With great respect, the noble Lord’s own explanation shows that what happens is that the First-tier Tribunal makes a decision and that is one in a very large number of decisions. If somebody wants to make a representation against that decision, asking for a review, the tribunal can invite representations at that stage; if it does, the applicant, as long as he was the original appellant, can get legal aid. If, on the other hand, the tribunal decides, “We do not want representations, we know that we are right”, it goes ahead with the review and comes back to the same decision; because an application has not been opened with right of representations at that stage, the second branch of the regulation gives legal aid. That is how I understood it but I may be wrong.
Lord Bach
I am sorry to come back, but it is only if the tribunal finds an error of law. An error of law has to be found by it first; then a review takes place. It is only in those circumstances, which are very rare indeed, that legal aid could be available at post First-tier Tribunal level. The other thing they might do is appeal to the Second-tier Tribunal, when other considerations would arise. However, it does not and cannot happen in every case. As I understand it, an error of law has to be found by the First-tier Tribunal after it has made its decision.
Baroness Doocey
My Lords, I support the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Bach, because I believe that the Government’s present proposals will be catastrophic for many thousands of people. During the passage of the Bill, provision for legal aid funding and advice for assistance in welfare benefit appeals made to the Upper Tribunal on a point of law was included in the legislation. The Government also conceded that the same point of principle should apply to the consideration of points of law by the First-tier Tribunal. The Lord Chancellor said, in reference to First-tier Tribunals:
“We are quite open to the argument for ensuring that we have legal representation when there is a legal issue that we cannot expect a lay person ordinarily to argue”.—[Official Report, Commons, 17/4/12; col. 226.]
However, the Government have honoured neither the spirit nor the letter of that commitment. The conditions they have laid down for legal aid to be available require so many planets to be in conjunction that, in practice, it is doubtful that the vast majority of claimants could ever meet them.
My prime concern is the needs of disabled people, who will be disproportionately affected by the removal of welfare benefits from the scope of legal aid. By not considering whether a point of law is involved other than when a further appeal is being pursued, the Government are effectively denying legal help to a significant proportion of disabled people whose appeal cases could nonetheless be considered to raise a point of law.
According to the Government’s own impact assessment figures, restricting legal aid to cases where the First-tier Tribunal itself identified that it erred in law would keep legal aid to just 696 welfare benefit cases in lower tribunals. That represents only a tiny proportion of the 135,000 welfare benefit cases each year. Of those 135,000 cases, 78,000—nearly 60%—involve disabled people who currently rely on legal aid for welfare benefit appeals.
What makes the situation worse is that the Government are in the middle of a major overhaul of the welfare benefits system. Millions of claimants will be reassessed and moved on to different benefits. During the transition period, disabled people will increasingly need expert legal advice to challenge inaccurate decisions about their benefits. The lack of legal aid to pursue an appeal in the first place will mean that disabled people are unlikely to reach the stage where they can get legal aid, as the vast majority of claimants are unlikely to recognise a point of law.
Legal aid for welfare benefit claimants costs an average of £150 a case. There can be significant consequences if disabled people do not receive the benefits to which they are entitled, causing considerable financial strain and pushing many of them into poverty. Their long-term costs in terms of demands on the health and welfare system are likely to be an awful lot higher than £150 per head.
As I have argued on previous occasions, the removal of legal aid from welfare claimants is fundamentally unjust. The paltry savings will prove to be a false economy. The Government’s latest proposal has made a bad policy worse. I urge the Minister to reconsider.
Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (Amendment of Schedule 1) Order 2012
Lord Bach Excerpts(11 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Bach
As an amendment to the above Motion, leave out from “that” to the end and insert “this House declines to approve the draft Order laid before the House on 29 October as it does not fulfil the undertaking given by Her Majesty’s Government on 17 April; and will mean claimants, including a disproportionate number of disabled people, will not receive legal help on a point of law in first-tier tribunals relating to welfare benefits thus denying them a fair hearing on point of law cases”.
Lord Bach
My Lords, I spoke to my amendment earlier in the debate and the House will be relieved to hear that I have very few words to say at this stage. My case is this: how can it be right that there is automatic legal aid for any client who gets to the second-tier or upper tribunal—the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court—on a welfare law case but no automatic right to legal aid for first-tier tribunals? You can get to the second-tier tribunal or the Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court only on a point of law. If that is the position, how can it be right that at a first-tier tribunal, when a client has a point of law, they should not be allowed some legal advice before the first-tier tribunal commences—in other words, before the first-tier tribunal or during it? It is no use being able to get it at the very end of the first-tier tribunal in very remarkable and odd circumstances.
The Government seem to believe that was appropriate logic because that is the concession they were generous enough to make in the House of Commons on 17 April 2012. But they have not kept to that concession. They have come up with something much more vague; something that will happen in very, very few cases.
I am very grateful to the Minister for the time he has taken with this and to all noble Lords who have spoken on my amendment. When the Minister answered a question from me the other day he said:
“I want to make sure that we maintain a legal aid system that will remain one of the most generous in the world and focus it on the most needy”.—[Official Report, 27/11/12; col. 90.]
Can noble Lords think of anyone who is more needy than the sort of person that the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, was describing—a disabled person who has undergone some of these tests in order to get her or his benefits, who is not happy with the result, thinks something has gone wrong and wants to appeal? What the Government are intending is that that person should not have the ability to get legal aid in order to appeal to the first-tier tribunal even when the matter is a point of law which they cannot be expected to know or understand. It defies logic and fairness to suggest that kind of process should continue.
All we are asking is that the Government withdraw this Motion, which they are clearly not prepared to do tonight. If they will not withdraw it, I shall ask the House, in a completely non-partisan spirit, to decline to give approval to this Motion tonight and invite the Government to come back with a slightly more generous order that looks after the type of person the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, was telling us about earlier in our debate.
Lord McNally
My Lords, we are almost on the verge of another financial Statement by the Chancellor. I have made it clear that the noble Lord must not lure the House into an idea that following him into the Division Lobby will produce a better offer because it will not.
Lord McNally
It is not a threat. I just do not want the House to make a decision on such an idea. This is not the Committee stage of a Bill. The order relates to what is already an Act of Parliament. If we do not bring forward another order in this area, the Act simply will go through. I want the House to be aware of that fact.
Lord Bach
There is a framework Act of Parliament, passed by Parliament, which I have never sought to go behind. These orders add flesh to those bones. This is a very important order. In any event, the Government would have to have some kind of order on these matters. On this occasion, the Government have, in effect, not kept with the intention that they certainly had in the House of Commons. By announcing what they did in the Commons, they managed not to lose a vote and to get the Bill through. As a consequence, it is a serious matter.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bach—I almost said “my noble friend”, which he is. My noble friend Lord McNally has not commented on the noble Lord’s fundamental assertion on which, for me, the strength of the case rests; namely, that the former Lord Chancellor made a clear undertaking which is now not being kept. Would it not be helpful to the House for the noble Lord, Lord Bach, to ask my noble friend Lord McNally for his comment on that?
Lord McNally
I will answer it—I answered it in my remarks. The Lord Chancellor said that he would take the matter away and use his best endeavours. I have seen the exchange of papers with the DWP, the Legal Services Commission and the Administration on whether this could be done. We have come back with our best endeavours. This casual throwing around of betrayal fires the troops up for voting but it simply is not true.
Lord Bach
I would not dream of using the word betrayal as regards this matter. The noble Lord misunderstands me completely. It is not a betrayal. The governing party in the House of Commons said that it intended to do something and, in that way, managed to get an adverse amendment withdrawn. It has come up with a solution but the solution is not the concession that it made in the House of Commons. That is the fact of the matter. It is a much narrower solution and it is deeply unsatisfactory for those who are interested in how the poor, the disabled and the vulnerable are looked after in our society and their rights to access to justice.
For that reason, I ask the House to decline to approve this order, so that the Government can think again and come back with an order which we can all accept. I beg to move.