Legal Aid and Civil Costs Reform

Lord Boateng Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

My noble friend’s question points to many of the problems that we face. If legal aid is automatically given in many of the areas that we are removing from scope, it becomes almost a first stop. We are actively trying to promote a different, cheaper and quicker mechanism for settling disputes. A dispute between someone suffering from autism and the local social services department almost automatically ends up as a battle between lawyers in court. We have got something wrong somewhere. We have taken tough decisions; we have taken people out of scope; and we shall look at different ways of getting advice. We propose that legal aid be retained for community care cases and for judicial review in community care cases. As I said before, we are not hiding the fact that this is a removal of legal aid from areas and cases that have previously been covered. We seek to encourage the alternative resolution of disputes, partly because, as the noble Lord, Lord Bach, said, successive Governments have found that the creep of legal aid makes it very difficult to keep overall control of it.

[Lord Boateng]

My Lords, no one would seriously suggest that we should not reform the legal aid and civil costs regime. However, citizens advice bureaux and the law centre movement have long played a distinguished part all over our country in providing access, not just for the most vulnerable but for the middle classes, to the law and to legal advice. It is cost effective and involves paid volunteers, lawyers, mediators and experts from a whole variety of sources who are needed to ensure that people get justice. The Minister’s right honourable friend has been silent in his Statement about the role of citizens advice bureaux and the law centre movement. Can he give some words of encouragement and support for the contribution that they currently make? Can he indicate whether they will have an opportunity to play an enhanced role in the future and perhaps do something about the crisis in funding that CAB centres face up and down the country, even as we speak?

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I can give some limited encouragement. It is true that the law centre movement and other such bodies, which rely on certain cases of legal aid, will have difficulties with this Statement. I also think that there are likely to be difficulties for the CABs which, as the noble Lord indicates, face the problem of the impact of cuts in local authority funding and the likely loss of legal-aid work in the legal advice that they cover. My right honourable friend the Lord Chancellor is fully seized of these problems and is very willing, during the period of consultation, to talk to those bodies and to explore alternative assistance and funding. The noble Lord points to the real impact made by the decisions that we have taken.