Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Debate between Lord Bach and Baroness Masham of Ilton

Tuesday 27th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Masham of Ilton]

My Lords, in supporting these amendments I give an example concerning Amendment 4. Recently, I had a letter about a tragic case. A baby had a boil on his behind. When his mother took him to have his polio vaccine, she queried the fact that he had a boil with the nurse. The nurse queried it with the doctor who said, “Go ahead and give him the vaccine”. The baby developed polio through the urine in his nappy. Now, years later, the boy is paralysed but the family have had no help and are still trying. Many cases need to be sorted out early to save years of anguish.

[Lord Bach]

From the opposition Front Bench I can be extremely brief, as I should be because this is Third Reading. These are very important amendments which the House will have to decide on shortly. JustRights has done some number-crunching on the issue of children. It points out that, while 95 per cent of funding may be protected, only 74 per cent of children are protected likewise. Therefore, the 6,000 mentioned by the noble Baroness who moved Amendment 3 will be left to navigate the legal system alone. These children will have no adult to help them—no litigation friend, in parlance.

It is absurd to think that in social welfare law cases, a conditional fee agreement is any substitute whatever for basic legal aid for getting legal advice for the kind of problems that affect these children. In effect, we are being asked to abandon some of these children— 16 year-olds perhaps—to a legal system that is far from understandable. They will be mainly children in care who have fractured relationships with their parents. The House knows so well that these are exactly the kind of children who, if they do not get early legal help, may end up in young offender institutions or secure children’s homes at enormous cost to the state, which would be much more than the small amount that the Government claim will be saved by not giving them legal aid. How much wiser would it be to spend that money early? Surely, for children, legal aid is greatly preferable to a CFA right across the board. We support the amendments.