Legal Aid and Civil Cost Reform

Lord Beith Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

Yes, or criminals.

Before bringing the full severity of law to bear on a criminal, however, we have to make absolutely sure that he is indeed the guilty party and that he has been given every chance to claim and demonstrate his innocence to save us from making a mistake. As the liberty of the subject is at stake in all serious criminal cases, we really cannot cut back the scope of criminal legal aid.

I think the reason why we spend spectacularly more than other countries on legal advice and litigation is that we have extended the legal aid system in the past to practically every kind of civil and family issue. That is why, when it comes to cutting back the scope, the present package on which we are consulting concentrates on those areas.

[Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)]

The Justice Committee will look forward to an early session with the Lord Chancellor on the details of his proposals. Are not the issues around education, employment, debt and housing, which he says do not require special legal expertise, those on which people do need help, which they currently get through LSC contracts, citizens advice bureaux and neighbourhood law centres? From where else will they get that help in future?

[Mr Clarke]

In some cases, as with housing issues where a person’s home is at risk and they may lose possession, we will continue to make legal aid available. Any cases involving the risk of homelessness or loss of liberty will still be covered by legal aid. The right hon. Gentleman gave a list and I will not deal with them each in turn, but they are all addressed in other ways than through litigation. Employment issues go before a tribunal, for example, and those tribunals were originally designed precisely to avoid representation by lawyers and legalism. They were designed to be more straightforward and accessible forms of justice. Debt certainly requires advice, but much of it is not so much of a legal nature as of a practical nature—advising how to cope with negotiating with creditors and sort out the management of the debts incurred. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that citizens advice bureaux and other such organisations are a central source of this advice. We will have to consider how far we can continue to enable such organisations to step in and give a wider range of advice, which will be needed when we stop paying people to go to lawyers all the time, as we tend to on all these issues.