Legal Aid

Lord Beecham Excerpts

Thursday 4th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks]

The noble Lord has frequently, before this House and elsewhere, helpfully advanced suggestions for providing legal assistance other than through legal aid. The Government are grateful for those suggestions and they continue to consider the report that he provided.

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, the Lord Chancellor’s fig leaf to conceal the damage he has wrought to the legal aid system was the exceptional funding scheme, which he estimated would attract 6,000 applications a year—in itself, only around 1% of the former case load. In the event, applications are running at only around 1,000 a year, of which only some 14% are granted. Will the Government urgently review that scheme, and if not, why not?

[Lord Faulks]

My Lords, in fact, the number of applications in 2013-14 was 1,520. It is extremely difficult to anticipate precisely in what circumstances exceptional funding might or might not be appropriate. A considerable number of judicial reviews are taking place with regard to the exceptional funding scheme generally and on specific cases. The noble Lord of course objects to any cuts in legal aid. It must be remembered that despite what was in the manifesto of the party opposite, it has objected to every single cut to both criminal and civil legal aid. I look forward to hearing how it will justify an additional spending of half a billion pounds; that did not feature in the debate on the Autumn Statement.