Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Debate between Lord Bach and Lord Martin of Springburn

Monday 12th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

On that point, does the noble Lord agree that government departments and health services all turn up with lawyers when they are defending an unfair dismissal? The Government will use lawyers, but they are saying that those who are seeking to fight their case do not need lawyers.

[Lord Bach]

The noble Lord is absolutely right; that is the thinking behind it. The same Government who say that this is not legal advice will of course have lawyers there to represent their interests at industrial tribunals. That will continue whether this legislation goes through or not, so let us have no more of that.

We have already heard mention of the unanimous resolution that was passed, I think only yesterday, at the Liberal Democrat party conference in Gateshead to support legal aid. I shall read three parts of that quite long resolution. First:

“A properly funded system whereby access to legal advice and representation before the courts is not denied to those otherwise unable to bear the costs”.

Secondly:

“The continued provision of legal aid”—

yes, legal aid—

“for those who cannot afford to pay for legal services, in serious cases where a failure to provide legal services may lead to injustice”.

That seems to me like an employment tribunal. Lastly:

“The implementation of the party’s policy on Access to Justice debated at Conference in 2011”.

Of course, the leadership of a party does not always take complete note of what the conference passes, even if it passes it unanimously. Yet it might have been better if the Government, who obviously did not agree with what was said in that unanimous resolution, had had the courage to say so during the course of whatever debate took place. It is very depressing.

Freedom of Information (Designation as Public Authorities) Order 2011

Debate between Lord Bach and Lord Martin of Springburn

Monday 17th October 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing the order so clearly and other noble Lords who have asked questions of some importance, particularly the final question, which the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, majored on, which was around the Government’s plans for reviewing the Freedom of Information Act.

I know that the Minister is giving what they nowadays describe as a keynote address this Thursday at the Westminster Legal Policy Forum on the very topical subject of:

“The future of Freedom of Information—challenges for expansion”.

I, alas, cannot be present because of duties in the House. If this sounds like an advertisement to go and hear the noble Lord, that is exactly what it is. However, I hope that he may be able to say something both this afternoon, in response to his noble friend Lord Maclennan, and on Thursday, because I know that he has particular duties in ministerial terms as far as this Act is concerned. I hope that he can perhaps unveil slightly today what he may say to his other audience on Thursday.

We support the order. The Freedom of Information Act was one of the substantial achievements of the previous Government. It will be long-standing and of substantial value to our freedoms. It does not always seem that way if you are sitting in a ministerial chair or even in a senior civil servant’s chair. It can be awkward, difficult and seem sometimes almost impossible, but that is precisely why it is in existence. So we support both the Act and this minor order—minor not for the three bodies involved but in the great scheme of things. It was in March 2010, as paragraph 8.4 of the Explanatory Memorandum tells us, that the decision to bring these bodies within the Act under Section 5 was made and communicated to each body. We are delighted to see the order before the Committee today.

My only question to the Minister is one that I mentioned to him briefly earlier. We read in paragraph 8.4 that two of the bodies “welcomed publicly” the fact that an order such as this one was to be made, bringing them within the scope of the Act. It does not say anything about the response of the third body, UCAS. Can the Minister help the Committee with how UCAS responded?

As I said at the start of my few remarks, we support what the Government are doing on this occasion.

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

My Lords, first, I apologise for being slightly late. I was listening to the debate on the Floor of the House and noticed that this subject had come up. I thought that I would come up and listen to the Minister.

I can well understand that we are talking about the chief police officers of England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Of course, we have a devolved Parliament for Scotland, and there are several police forces in Scotland. Will the Minister consult the Scottish Parliament to see that freedom of information will be available in this respect for police authorities north of the border?

The Minister has said that he, on behalf of his party, welcomes freedom of information. It did not stop those who were in an executive position complaining about freedom of information after it was pushed through Parliament. Many officials and Cabinet Ministers sleepwalked through that particular incident. I make no complaint about the legislation; I simply ask the Minister a question. Many journalists use freedom of information so that they can get what is best described as an angle for their particular story. When they ask the question and there follows a period of, let us say, 27 days—although I may be contradicted on that—I have known it to be the case with matters of the House that they have complained bitterly that the freedom of information was given to them and to the general public. They have complained bitterly that it spoiled their story that everybody else should get the information. Freedom of information is about everybody getting that information. They are on record as complaining; they are using it as a device to get a scoop, or whatever they call it.

I feel strongly that once the information is issued to the applicant for that freedom of information, it should be put in the public domain immediately afterwards. In other words, if the information is given to the applicant at 2 pm on a given day, by one minute past two everyone should be able to get that information. I know that some people say that the identity of an applicant should not matter and that you should not know who they are. However, it is a bit rich if an application is made by someone sitting in garret in Toronto, asking for information, which takes a considerable amount of public funding. We should at least know whether a taxpayer of this country is making that application. Can the Minister mention that? It is not fair that someone who has nothing else to do with their time in another country can make an application and no one has to say where they come from. That is very important.