Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Debate between Lord Clinton-Davis and Lord Phillips of Sudbury

Monday 23rd April 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords, I listened carefully to what the Minister said and I am afraid that I am not satisfied that the arrangements she explained are anything like adequate to deal with the more difficult cases that will be presented to those on the telephone lines. Indeed, the problem is that they will not be presented at all. As one who spent a large part of his early days in the law trying to help ordinary people with their so-called ordinary problems, I know that there is much greater difficulty in getting instructions from inarticulate, anxious or unconfident people than well intentioned, middle-class people can believe.

It is simply unrealistic to say that when vulnerable people come on the phone there will be sympathetic people to direct them here, there or somewhere else because they will never get on the phone. The reason is that today the law is so complicated that the kind of people I am thinking about will never get to the point of understanding, in articulate terms or with any clarity, what their problem is. The only chance of them getting to that point will be if they get before a sympathetic person, in a sympathetic context, who has the skill—and it takes skill—to coax out of them just what is the problem. Everyone sitting in this place may say, “Well, for Pete’s sake, they all go to school and have got technology that can do this and do that”, but at least 10 per cent of our fellow citizens are not in that category—they are the most needy people—and a system which fails the most needy 10 per cent is simply unacceptable.

I do not mind how many reviews we have about this, this system will not work for those people. I know it. I worked with the Samaritans for years, and every Samaritan knows that for every one person who comes on the telephone there are many more who never even get that far.

I am afraid to say that I shall be in opposition to the Government’s response to Amendment 24, the beauty of which was that it was the Lord Chancellor’s duty to deal with people’s needs by a range of forms. Such a system would be much more flexible. Indeed, the Minister, quite rightly, said that the need for every person to have face-to-face advice, as is required by subsection (a) of the proposed new clause in Amendment 24B, is too inflexible. However, by the same token, her argument that every case will be dealt with by telephone is too monopolistic and will not work for a very important slice of the population.

I ask all noble Lords to think of someone they know who does not have the confidence to speak up, the analytical ability to know quite what their problem is and certainly not the confidence to use this facility, well intentioned though it is. I hope the Minister will reflect on what I have said and, if she doubts me, talk to others who know more than I. Perhaps she will say in summing up what is now the position with the CABs and law centres. At least they have the facility for people to go in and meet other members of the public who work voluntarily for the CAB and have time. It can often take half an hour to find out what the problem is. Is the funding of CABs and law centres now assured so that they can do that?

[Lord Clinton-Davis]

My Lords, I agree with what the noble Lord has said. I can remember that many years ago, when I undertook my surgery in my constituency, people came there who were all too often inadequate, vulnerable and inarticulate. I do not know how they could have possibly represented their case on the telephone; they were afraid of the telephone. All I wish to say in my brief remarks is that I have first-hand knowledge of what the noble Lord has said and that what is now being proposed will affect such people. The majority of people who sought aid and assistance that they would otherwise not have received were incapable of representing their perfectly justified remarks.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Debate between Lord Clinton-Davis and Lord Phillips of Sudbury

Tuesday 20th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords, I—

[Lord Clinton-Davis]

My Lords, may I? That side has just been speaking.

[Lord Clinton-Davis]

My Lords, I would like to ask the Government a simple question. What do the Bar Council, the Law Society and the organisations concerned with poverty with regard to legal services have to say? Have the Government taken the trouble to consult these organisations? The noble Lord says that they have. So what is their reply? They remain obdurately opposed to the principles that the Government are putting forward today. I unhesitatingly support the amendment. Pretty well all the speeches in the Committee—whether from the Conservative, Liberal Democrat or these Benches, and on the Cross Benches—have expressed opposition to what the Government are trying to do and support for what the amendment stands for.

I also unhesitatingly support the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile. He has spoken very bravely, and has been supported by several noble Lords who share his profession. A bevy of Silks have announced support for the proposition advanced by the amendment. I got involved with legal aid from pretty well the very beginning, because of a very simple notion—I thought it was imperative that ordinary people should be able to advance their cause and, where they are impaired from doing so, they should be supported by the state. That was my view then. The amendment sets out very clearly, within the constraints that are necessarily imposed upon us, the basic principles that we should preserve.

It is vital that individuals should have access to legal services, where their rights are being seriously impaired or are not being properly advanced—subject always to the provisions of the 1999 Act. There is a serious risk that both of these will occur, separately, under the changes to legal aid provision now being contemplated. I am surprised that any person of any sensitivity—and I think that the noble Lord, Lord McNally, would fall into that category—would support such changes. I have always had great admiration for the noble Lord—I do not know why, as he has done his best to impair that decision on my part. It is not a question of party prejudice at all; it is a question of downright decency and that is what I support today.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords, one could be in danger of being slightly sentimental about the Access to Justice Act. Some in this Chamber will remember it very well and opposed it very strongly. I called it the “Exit from Justice Act”. However, I recognise that legal aid is a sort of Cinderella of the welfare state and is a very difficult service to defend in terms of public opinion, for reasons that I advanced at Second Reading and which I do not propose to repeat. However, I will just say that I am, always have been and always will be, passionately committed to the legal aid scheme. Without an effective legal aid scheme the legislation we produce in this place can be viewed as cynical. To legislate rights knowing that a large number of those for whom they are intended do not have access to them must be a form of cynicism. Having said which, the Government are placed in an extremely difficult position, and there is no jibbing the fact that all departments of state have to bear some part of the cuts which the Government have determined are essential for our economic well-being. I am one who concurs with that judgment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Clinton-Davis]

There must be some restriction. I unhesitatingly support the legal aid system but there has always been an understanding, has there not, that the amount of resources which are available must be consonant with what we can afford?

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

The noble Lord has just made the case for the Government rather succinctly. That is the argument; what I am saying is that if you put the qualifying phrase,

“within the resources made available”,

into Clause 1, then everything is subservient to it. At the moment, the legal aid cost rises and falls—it usually rises but occasionally falls—according to the demands of the citizen upon it within the scope of legal aid availability. As I say, with this phrase in it the Government could say at the start of the year, “We are not paying out more than blank pounds for legal aid”, and that would be that.

Courts: Magistrates’ Courts

Debate between Lord Clinton-Davis and Lord Phillips of Sudbury

Tuesday 14th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords—

[Lord Clinton-Davis]

My Lords—