Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill
Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds Excerpts(12 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Massey of Darwen
My Lords, I have put my name to an amendment in this group—that in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and others. I simply make one appeal to the Government concerning their commitment to protect vulnerable children and young people.
I declare an interest as the chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Children. Over the past year our theme has been vulnerable children. We have heard about the problems that such children and their families have in dealing with complex systems such as education, health and the law, and we have heard many passionate and committed speeches about these young people today. In my experience, this House has never been party-political on issues regarding children; it has always considered the well-being of children to be above party politics. That spirit has been shown today on the Benches opposite, and long may it continue.
The Minister for Children, Sarah Teather, for whom I have the greatest respect, made a commitment in 2010 to assess legislation against the needs of children, as enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and I find it ironic that we are now considering legislation that will potentially damage vulnerable children and their families. The Government, in their report Positive for Youth—I shall not go into that but the commitment is there—made commitments to protect disadvantaged and vulnerable children, and the Liberal Democrat youth policy Free to be Young makes commitments to improve young people’s access to legal advice. I think we should all remember those commitments today. I trust that the Government will recognise that intervention at an early age, particularly for the vulnerable, is not only humane; it also benefits well-being and is cost effective. I hope that the Government will look again at the commitments to vulnerable children and young people.
The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds
My Lords, as the first speaker from these Benches in this debate, I add my gratitude for all the work of Lord Newton of Braintree. It seems strange to be sitting here without his advice from behind me, as the noble Lord, Lord Bach, said earlier in the debate. He had immense care and concern for children’s needs and rights, which was evident right up to last week. Not to have his sharpness here in this debate is a loss for all of us, so our thanks to him.
The amendments would go a long way to providing security of legal aid for some of our most vulnerable children, at minimal cost. We seem now to have reached a point where legal aid will be provided for many children. I have listened carefully to what has been said by the noble Lords, Lord Thomas of Gresford and Lord Avebury. It seems to be almost accidental whether a particular child will come under the provisions of the Bill. The amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, gives us the opportunity to treat all children in difficulties equally, with particular concern for education and sanctuary issues.
We all recognise the importance of education for all, so we must be concerned that Black Caribbean pupils, for example, according to the children’s commissioner, are four times more likely than others to be excluded permanently from school. Those children will often be vulnerable, frightened and very unsure about their future. They need the structure of the legal system to provide them with support at that point in their lives. Equally, we continue to affirm that we have an immigration system that deliberately provides sanctuary for children who have been victims of abuse of whatever kind. They may have been trafficked into this country—and I, too, welcome the Government’s changes on that issue. However, many will not have been trafficked; trafficking is extremely difficult to define. Nevertheless, they may have suffered sexual exploitation, domestic slavery or abuse. They may have been brought into this country as domestic slaves and will often have been abused. Some will be the subject of custody cases, which may lead to abuse or separation from a parent. Others would be in danger of abuse if they returned to a country where exploitation would continue.
Justice demands proper legal representation and the amendments provide a way of securing that at minimal cost. They would demonstrate our concern for the most vulnerable young people in our society. They are absolutely in accord with the Government’s aims and purposes, and I hope, therefore, that they will accept them
Lord Wigley
My Lords, I rise to support the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, and apologise for missing her opening remarks. However, before briefly addressing the amendment, I would like to associate myself with the words in remembrance of Lord Newton. In another place I worked very closely with him, as Tony Newton, when I was vice-chair of the parliamentary All-Party Disablement Group. Even when he could not meet us in all our demands, he was always very positive and looked for ways to come at least some of the way towards us. He will be a great loss for all of us in this House as well as for the many thousands outside the House for whom he worked so hard.
I also thank the noble Lord, Lord McNally, for some of the concessions that he has been able to make at other times—particularly for those with learning difficulties—which I was unable to acknowledge earlier.
On this specific amendment, all of us who have had reason to work on behalf of disabled children will be aware of the need to ensure that they get fair play within the system. If there is any danger of them losing out and not being able to go to appeal on benefits then there need to be safeguards in legislation.
Many of us served for weeks on end on the Welfare Reform Bill. We hoped that some amendments would strengthen it and make it more easily understood. In reality, the amendments failed. There will be challenges to the interpretation of the legislation that will need to go to the courts. Unless provisions such as those in the amendment are included in the Bill, people will miss out. Therefore, even if some aspects—to which the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, referred—are already covered elsewhere, others are not. Therefore, let us give another place a chance by agreeing the amendment. If there is then a need to pare it back, all well and good—but at this point, unless we agree the amendment we will lose everything.
The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds
My Lords, I, too, am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, for her determination to challenge what I still take to be the unintended consequences of Clause 145 regarding the further criminalisation of squatters, which is simply unnecessary. I do not want to repeat arguments that have already been made but this measure will have an impact on the care and support that the voluntary sector seeks to provide for the homeless in our cities. Like most cities, Leeds is seeing a steady rise in homelessness. The reasons for this are complex and the voluntary sector and the local authority are working hard to mitigate its effects, at least as regards providing mental health help for the homeless. However, we simply cannot provide accommodation for all street sleepers. Many homeless people are squatting in empty houses to avoid sleeping on the streets. This clause criminalises squatting, thereby affecting some of the most vulnerable people in our society. I hope that these amendments can be accepted to provide context and support for those people as the voluntary sector and local authorities seek to provide them with help and encouragement for the rest of their lives.
Lord Campbell-Savours
I wish to intervene briefly in this debate. I have come into the Chamber for the scrap metal debate but it seems to me that we may be overlooking a major flaw in the amendment. Clause 145 states:
“A person commits an offence if”,
and then lists various conditions. However, the amendment seeks to add to the statement in the Bill that,
“The offence is not committed by a person”,
the phrase,
“if the building has been empty twelve months or more and is not subject to a current planning application”.
So what happens if a building has been empty for marginally longer than 12 months and is being improved? Perhaps it is being improved to meet building regulations, or the person improving the property might be awaiting a mortgage payment to fund improvements, which might mean that they go over the 12-month period.
Community Legal Service (Funding) (Amendment No. 2) Order 2011
Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames
My Lords, I rise with a heavy heart to speak against this annulment Motion. It is with a heavy heart because, for all my professional life, I have been a devoted supporter of legal aid. I declare an interest as a barrister who over the years has done a great deal of publicly funded work. My first ever motion to a Liberal Democrat conference was on the promotion of legal aid. The Liberal Democrat Lawyers Association, which I chaired for a number of years, drank a toast every year at its annual dinner to the Legal Aid Fund, a toast proposed by a prominent lawyer. It is noteworthy in the context of today’s debate that the toast was changed some 10 years ago to “justice for all”, as an ironic response to cuts in civil legal aid made by the then Labour Government. I chaired a policy group entitled A Right to Justice, which helped to define Liberal Democrat policy on improving the legal aid scheme. My party has always taken as its starting point for discussion on this topic that access to justice is a crucial right and that legal aid funding provides a vital public service. There is no point in having rights enforceable at law if citizens cannot secure those rights in courts of law. I know from many years’ experience of him that that is the position my noble friend the Minister takes as well.
However, while there was much to agree with in all the speeches that have been made so far in favour of the Motion, we live in difficult times. As the noble Lord, Lord Bach, fairly acknowledged, savings must be made. The provisions of the order are estimated to deliver £120 million of the £350 million of savings that the Ministry of Justice is required to make in legal aid over the spending review period from 2011-15. If we do not make those savings, matters can only get worse and later cuts will have to be deeper.
On a personal note, in Greece, my wife's home country, I have seen at first hand the effects of the extreme austerity measures cutting back public expenditure. The cuts could have been much less harsh had the Government there got a grip on the public purse earlier when all the signs of overspending were plain for all to see.
The need to make savings in the legal aid budget was recognised by the Labour Party in Government who made some 30 attempts to limit it, reducing fees in real terms across the piece as they did so, between 2006 and their leaving office. Furthermore, that was before the full extent of the deficit became apparent and the need for deficit reduction and cuts across the board became as clear as it is now. On 18 May 2009, the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, asked whether the Labour Government would maintain the rates of legal aid payments in family law cases. The noble Lord, Lord Bach, replied:
“Family legal aid costs have risen unsustainably from £399 million per year to £582 million per year in the past six years. We need to control these costs in order to protect services for vulnerable clients”.—[Official Report, 18/5/09; col. 1201.]
In the consultation paper sent out by Ministry of Justice in July 2009, for which the noble Lord, Lord Bach, as legal aid Minister, was responsible, its proposals were described as follows:
“Our legal aid system is one of the best funded in the world. We spend around £38 per head on it annually in England and Wales, compared to £4 in Germany and £3 in France. Even countries with a legal system more like ours spend less; for example, both New Zealand and the Republic of Ireland spend around £8 per head”.
I regard the fact that we still spend considerably more than comparable countries on legal aid as a matter for pride. That is still the case but it highlights the degree to which the legal aid budget must bear its share of the economies that have to be made.
The Labour Government's consultation paper continued:
“While we devote considerable resources to legal aid—£2bn annually—”
the figure is now £2.2 billion—
“our resources are limited, and we need to review regularly how legal aid funds are being spent, and whether we are securing value for money for the taxpayer and providing the services that the public need”.
The Government's response to the consultation, published in January 2010 and signed by the noble Lord, Lord Bach, said:
“The Government wants to ensure that we rebalance the legal aid budget as far as possible in favour of civil help for those who need it most. But we also need to ensure that the resources we currently devote to civil legal aid are being targeted appropriately, and that the rules for granting funding are as robust as they need to be to ensure that resources are expended on meritorious cases … The intended effects are to redirect resources onto higher priority areas, and to ensure that funding is only granted to eligible clients”.
The words “rebalance” and “redirect resources” would inevitably have involved real terms reductions in fees. Labour’s 2010 election manifesto said:
“To help protect frontline services, we will find greater savings in legal aid and the courts system”.
When this Government's consultation paper on legal aid was published, the noble Lord, Lord Bach, very fairly said, as he said tonight:
“It would have been hypocritical of Labour to say we would not cut anything. If we had, we would be rightly criticised”.
It is beyond doubt that the reductions in fees embodied in the order, which the noble Lord seeks to annul, do make it more difficult for the already hard-pressed community legal practitioners, mentioned in the Motion, to thrive and will make it more difficult for barristers, junior and senior, who work on publicly funded work. We agree entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Bach, that such practitioners carry out an essential service for those least able to afford it. This order does involve a 10 per cent cut in their fees and in the fees of barristers for publicly funded work across the field of civil and family law, not just social welfare law. It includes—I would suggest rightly—a limit on experts’ fees for the first time. It is going to be more necessary than ever for lawyers to practise as efficiently as they can and the harsh reality is that they will earn less from legal aid work. However, I am far less clear that their core viability is threatened.
We will be debating these issues—and the other issues about the scope of legal aid mentioned by the noble Lord, but not the subject of this order—in full when the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill comes to this House shortly. I hope we will also be able to explore during the course of this Parliament other ways in which savings might be made without damaging the quality of the justice system. Progress is being made in exploring the achievement of savings through alternative dispute resolution procedures. I believe there is also room for improvement in the efficiency of the court system to produce savings. In the family field, I look forward with great hope to the final report of the Family Justice Review chaired by David Norgrove.
I would make it clear from these Benches that we have been, and are, heavily involved in discussions with practitioners and others , including many civil and family law practitioners, both barristers and solicitors, who have quite rightly expressed their concerns to us. We will examine closely with Ministers whether, and how far, the Bill achieves fairness and the protection of the vulnerable in the use of extremely limited resources. We would hope and expect that in due course, in a reviving economy, any gaps in provision that emerge will be refilled. However, that there must now be some cuts in fees is inevitable in these straitened circumstances.
In advancing this annulment Motion I suggest that the noble Lord and the Labour Party need to tell us what choices they would have made, or would make now, in cutting the legal aid budget. What were the cuts that he was intending to implement? How would they not have threatened hard-pressed community practitioners? Until those questions are answered fully, I suggest that, however regrettable the need for fee cuts in civil and family proceedings, it would not be sensible to divide the House on this Motion.
The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bach, for raising this issue tonight and for concentrating my thoughts—like those of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel—on the welfare of children as they are treated by our legal system. We spent the whole of this afternoon talking about the treatment and rights of children. I look forward to the Government’s response and comment on the ways in which children can be particularly protected in our legal system by the way in which the distribution of fees is arranged throughout that system.
I am still puzzled by the words of the noble Lord, Lord Marks, and why it should be this area in which we look for savings. A number of noble Lords have spoken of areas, in criminal law, for example, where there could be significant savings. Why should it be this area? I think of the work, for example, of Henry Hyams, a firm of solicitors in Leeds which takes some 2,000 cases a year from the most deprived areas of Leeds. They tell me that almost all of those cases involve the welfare of children.
That takes us to the effect of these cuts on those clinicians who provide reports to assist the courts in making determinations about the safeguarding of children—professionals who provide evidence of injury and of abuse and who are often key to the welfare of children. We have improved immensely our understanding of childcare in our society, and much of that has been due to the diligence of such professionals. We are all made very aware when a mistake is made by one of those professionals; we forget the thousands of cases when accurate decisions are taken about children’s welfare and their future. The debate that we had all afternoon and this debate come together in looking at the well-being—again—of children, and of their place in our society.
Clergy in pastoral work are often aware of the time spent both by those clinicians and by lawyers with their clients, seeking the best way forward for children and family life, often in work that is undertaken quite outside the fee system. We claim to be a society that puts the family first; social welfare law is an important part of enabling us to do that.
The noble Lord, Lord Marks, spoke of the way in which he hoped that, if there were gaps in our provision, they would be able to be filled again as the economic situation becomes better. But the most important part of our response to the difficulties in which we find ourselves is that those who are most deprived in our society should be those whom we seek to protect from the cuts being made. The Government and many local authorities seek to do that, yet in this particular instance those cuts are bearing at their hardest on those least able to bear the brunt of them.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, I have three categories of interest to declare. The first is professional but, unlike a number of noble Lords who have spoken, not as a member of the Bar and still less as a most distinguished judge but as a mere solicitor and now as an unpaid consultant in the firm of which I was senior partner for some 30 years. The second is a political interest. As my noble friend will recall, it was a resolution that I was responsible for that went to the Labour Party conference some three years ago, which was somewhat critical—and rightly so—of the then Government’s policies on legal aid. That led to the establishment of the committee chaired by my noble friend Lord Bach, on which he was gracious enough to invite me to participate. The third is a personal one, because the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and I graduated at the same time all of 46 years ago from the school of jurisprudence at Oxford.
This order, coming as it does shortly before the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill reaches your Lordships' House, is something of a tawdry harbinger of what is very likely to be a prolonged and hard winter for access to justice. It is interesting that the young legal aid lawyers, in the briefing note that they have circulated, drew attention to the fact that the consultation that the Government entered into on their proposals to reduce these fees was very limited. They consulted only the Law Society and the Bar Council; there was no consultation with other stakeholders, such as law centres, community groups or citizens advice bureaux, or indeed any client interests. This does not seem to represent the “no decision about me without me” process, which was allegedly followed in terms of the health service.
Legal Aid
Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord McNally
The impact assessment was consistent with our equality duties which included the duty to have due regard to the impact of the legislation on groups of all ages. This is detailed in the equality impact assessment. I understand that legal aid is in public law. If I am wrong on that, I shall write to the noble Baroness and place a copy of my reply in the House Library.
Lord Newton of Braintree
My Lords, I am sorry to get ahead of the right reverend Prelate. There are least three pieces of major legislation currently going around that have an impact, as is perceived, on vulnerable people, including children, disabled people and others. I refer to the Welfare Reform Bill, this legal aid legislation and the housing provisions of the Localism Bill. Has anyone carried out an overall impact assessment of these pieces of legislation on the people we are concerned about? In other words, is this joined-up government?
The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds
Will the Minister confirm that among those most affected by this legislation will be children fighting deportation, including those who have been in this country for many years and have no knowledge of the country where they were born? Would not such an effect be contrary to Article 8 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child?
Lord McNally
All the proposals in the legislation are fully compliant with the Human Rights Act. As I have said before, in cases where children are involved our intention is, where possible, to provide legal aid. The problem is that we are discussing the proposals against a background of questions to which we will know the answer only when the impact of the legislation is seen. That is why we have committed to keeping the impact of the legislation, when it is in place, fully under review.
Public Bodies Bill [HL]
Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds Excerpts(13 years, 1 month ago)
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The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds
My Lords, I, too, support Amendment 20A. It is the experience of a number of Members of this Bench that the Youth Justice Board has been among the most effective of the executive agencies since 1997. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Warner, for his persistence in helping us to explore the qualities of the board and the opportunities that it has taken to encourage work with both young offenders and those in danger of becoming young offenders. From the perspective of this Bench, that experience has been held together by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool, who is very sorry that he is unable to be with us today to continue the debate.
Many of us have experience of YOIs and the work being done in them, overseen and encouraged by the Youth Justice Board. The board is ideally placed to help young people through programmes such as the Youth Inclusion Programme and the use of youth offending teams. It has been at the forefront of encouraging the restorative justice procedures about which we have spoken often in this House and which deliver high levels of victim satisfaction as well as positively influencing offending behaviour.
The oversight and commissioning of custody places for young people are highly specialised activities. I do not know whether other Members of your Lordships' House have visited Wetherby Young Offender Institution, but it was good hear the noble Earl and the noble Baroness speak of developments there because it is on my patch and I know it quite well. One gains a real sense that it is exploring ways forward for the young people in its care—I would say the same of the other YOI, that at Deerbolt near Barnard Castle. The young people there need the specialist attention which the Youth Justice Board can and does provide. I, too, do not argue that the Youth Justice Board is perfect and I have on occasions argued with it, but I know that it offers specific attention to those young men who often have both disrupted and disruptive lives.
Surely the YJB is among those public bodies which continue to make a real difference to the health of our nation. If the Minister, to whom I, too, am grateful for his own part in wrestling with this issue, is not moved by that fact, will he not accept that, in purely financial terms, this body is saving millions of pounds in terms of the number of young people who are being kept out of our young offender institutions as well as of those within them who are being helped and encouraged towards a future life out of the criminal system?
Lord Newton of Braintree
My Lords, I am feeling rather good because, in the course of the past 20 minutes or so, I have given way, modestly, to every other section in the House, including the Bench immediately in front of me. So I think that I deserve some credit, and I am looking for it particularly from the right reverend Prelate.
I have only a modest speech to make, which is why I refrained earlier. I want just to make it clear to my noble friend on the Front Bench that those of us who expressed some concern at the previous stage have not melted into night but retain some concern. In my experience, which is not inconsiderable, even civil servants have a completely different mindset if they are serving a dedicated outfit, whatever is said about its independence, outside the department than if they are simply part of the department’s mainstream. It is an underestimated argument in some of these debates.
Lastly, I ask again a question that I asked on the previous occasion, and I shall try to do so even more crisply—it is the question that the noble Lord, Lord Warner, and others have adumbrated: if youth justice was, by common consent, a mess before and has been made better by the Youth Justice Board, what is the case for believing that it will stay better if it goes back pretty much to where it came from in the first place?