Access to Justice

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks]

I can assure the right reverend Prelate that these are matters which will be considered by this Government, or indeed any other Government to follow, in due course—probably between 2016 and 2018.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, is it not clear that the principle of equal access to justice is held sacred across the political parties as well as across the churches? Is it not equally evident, however, and curiously, that it is a principle not cherished in the bosom of the Lord Chancellor, the very person who we would expect to be the high priest of justice? The Minister knows the present Lord Chancellor, Mr Grayling, well. Will he share with the House any insight he may have as to why the Lord Chancellor is a heretic in regard to this article of faith?

[Lord Faulks]

The Lord Chancellor is well aware of his obligations, as he told the Constitution Committee. He has had to ensure that so far as possible there is access to justice while at the same time having to cope with the deficit that was left behind by the party opposite. I can assure the noble Lord that the Lord Chancellor remains committed to access to justice, as do all his Ministers.

Civil Proceedings and Family Proceedings Fees (Amendment) Order 2015

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2015 Lords Chamber

I want to make one last point and that is that equal justice is to the body politic what equal health treatment is to the human body. Would there not be an uproar if we started to do anything remotely comparable with the provisions in this order to the NHS, where equality of treatment is unassuageable? So I speak with all others in hoping that, difficult though it may be, the Government may find some way of not proceeding with these measures.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, for tabling this amendment. I also thank him and other noble Lords for speaking in criticism of this statutory instrument. Their speeches have been principled, lucid and compelling.

It appears that I may be the only non-lawyer to participate in this debate, and I hope it will not be regarded as superfluous or intrusive if I speak simply as a citizen. To me, access to justice is fundamental to the very nature of British citizenship. The rule of law and equality before the law are, or should be, bedrocks of our constitution and our liberal society. The essential principle, which we must preserve, is that no one should be prevented from bringing a reasonable case to court for lack of financial means. This order violates that principle. The imposition of a 5% fee on claims ranging from £10,000 to £200,000 is, as noble Lords have noted, a potential increase of the order of 600%. To be required to pay £10,000 upfront as the entry fee to get into court will in practical terms be impossible for many small and medium-sized enterprises, as it will be impossible for individuals who seek to recover debts due to them or to get personal injury compensation or compensation for clinical negligence.

As has been noted, a coalition of lawyers and other expert groups has advised us that:

“These proposals will significantly reduce the ability of individuals and small businesses with legitimate claims to pursue these through the courts ... These increases represent a significant barrier to access to justice ... Increasing fees to fund court infrastructure risks ‘pricing out’ those on low and medium-level incomes, leaving access to justice in the hands of a wealthy few”.

The Ministry of Justice’s assessment of the impact of this measure is scandalously inadequate, and not for the first time. We vigorously criticised the impact assessment associated with the LASPO Bill because it was simply not good enough. In the case of the impact assessment for this measure, the Regulatory Policy Committee said in January 2014 of an earlier articulation of the impact assessment, in terms, that the impact assessment is not fit for purpose. The impact assessment that was published alongside this order in January this year is equally unfit for purpose. The criticisms do not appear to have been heeded. For example, in the section that covers key assumptions, sensitivities and risks, the impact assessment says:

“It has been assumed that fee changes will not affect court case volumes … It has been assumed that there are no detrimental impacts on court case outcomes nor on access to justice from any increase in court fees. It has been assumed that there are to be no impacts on the legal services used to pursue or defend claims”.

In the section on impact, the Explanatory Memorandum tells us:

“Some proceedings to which these fee changes apply may involve businesses, charities, voluntary bodies or public sector organisations.—We“—

that is, the Ministry of Justice—

“do not routinely collect information on people and organisations involved in court proceedings and we are not therefore able to calculate the impact that the fee increases are likely to have on these organisations”.

In the next section, on regulating small business, the impact assessment tells us:

“Some proceedings to which these fees relate will be initiated by small businesses. We do not have detailed information on the characteristics of those who bring money claims before the courts; how many of these proceedings may be initiated by, or against small businesses; and the types and value of claim they typically make. We do not therefore know what the impact of these fee increases is likely to be on small businesses”.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice, Mr Vara, in seeking to advocate this measure to the House of Commons, said that,

“we must also look to those who use the courts to contribute more towards their running where they can afford to do so”.—[Official Report, Commons, First Delegated Legislation Committee, 23/2/15; col. 3.]

The Minister reiterated that thought today.

The problem is that they do not know whether potential users of the courts will in these new circumstances be able to afford to do so. I understand that there are no fee remissions for SMEs. To legislate in avowed ignorance of the impact of the legislation on those who may seek to avail themselves of legal remedy is reckless. It is breathtakingly irresponsible. The policy is also based on an improper premise that the costs of public services should be fully funded by their users. Again, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary told the House of Commons:

“The normal rule for public services is that fee income should cover the full cost of delivering such services”.—[Official Report, Commons, First Delegated Legislation Committee, 23/2/15; col. 3.]

Of course, it is the Government’s intention and it is part of what is provided for in this order that they should go beyond covering full costs; they should in certain cases exceed full costs. I quote from Paragraph 7.2 of the Explanatory Memorandum:

“The Government decided to take a power to charge fee income from courts above the full level of cost for certain proceedings”.

Two reasons are given:

“It did so to make sure that the courts are adequately funded in order that access to justice is protected”.

So they priced the courts out of people’s reach in order to make sure that access to justice is protected. It goes on to say, and this is really revealing:

“It also wanted to reduce the cost of the courts borne by the taxpayer”.

Whatever may be the case in certain areas of government, there is plainly not an expectation that the cost of public services should be covered by fees charged to their users. Obviously it is not the case in the National Health Service or where schools are concerned and whatever may have been the tradition and the practice in the justice system I suggest that this cannot be a paramount principle. The paramount principle is to ensure access to justice. I believe that the overwhelming majority of our fellow citizens accept that there is a social contract. They may not use that language but they understand and accept that they must pay the taxes needed to ensure that there is equal access to justice.

There has been too much cant in too many pronouncements from Ministers at the Ministry of Justice. I immediately except from that charge the noble Lord, Lord Faulks. He may be briefed to utter cant but he would never originate cant. However, I am afraid to say that his colleague in the House of Commons has been less fastidious. He said in the ministerial foreword to the response to the consultation that was published in January 2015:

“I am proud that we live in a country which operates under the rule of law, and where we have such a strong tradition of access to justice … It is vital that these principles and qualities are preserved so that people can continue to have ready access to the courts when they need it”.

That is his commentary in response to the consultation on the very measure we are debating this evening.

The Lord Chancellor himself, Mr Grayling, at the Global Law Summit, to which reference has already been made, said that we continue to innovate and develop our policy at the Ministry of Justice but always consistent with the principles of Magna Carta. It simply is not so. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary, in talking about the financial context of this policy, again in the response to the consultation, talked about having reduced spending on legal aid so the scheme is more affordable. This is the Alice in Wonderland logic the ministry employs. By more affordable of course he means for the taxpayer, not for the citizen who needs to have recourse to the justice system. He boasted that,

“we have reduced staffing levels in our headquarters functions, and in the headquarters of our agencies”.

However, what he did not mention in that document was the money that the Ministry of Justice has wasted on information technology. I quote from the Guardian of 30 June 2014:

“The Ministry of Justice has written off £56m spent on an IT project after discovering it was late, over budget and duplicated by another department”.

The write-off was equivalent to about a quarter of the amount being cut from the legal aid budget.

Court Fees

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Thursday 26th February 2015 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how much additional money they expect to raise by increasing court fees; what they will use it for; and what is their assessment of the impact of that policy on access to justice.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Faulks)]

My Lords, we estimate that the introduction of enhanced court fees for money claims may generate around £120 million in additional income annually. There is a statutory requirement that income from enhanced fees must be used to fund an efficient and effective system of courts and tribunals. For the reasons set out in the Government’s consultation response published on 16 January, we do not believe that the policy will have a negative impact on access to justice.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

Did the Minister, whose personal commitment to justice I do not for a moment doubt, notice that on Monday, when the Lord Chancellor was piously quoting Magna Carta to the Global Law Summit—

“to no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice”,

Mr Grayling intoned—his unfortunate junior Minister, Mr Vara, was attempting to explain to the House of Commons that what the Government euphemistically call “enhanced court fees” are actually intended to protect access to justice? Are not these increases in court fees, ranging to more than 600% and following upon the Government’s assaults on civil legal aid and judicial review, simply the latest instances of how this Government do in fact sell, deny and delay justice, in brazen contempt of Magna Carta and the rule of law?

[Lord Faulks]

No, I do not accept that characterisation of the Government’s policies in general or the enhanced court fees. The Government are committed to providing effective access to justice and a good and satisfactory court system which is paid for by litigants. The qualification to our enhanced court fees is that the 90% who are below £10,000 will not pay increased court fees, and we believe that the cost of the court system should be borne by those bringing larger claims.

Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Friday 16th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury (LD)]

My Lords, this is in the nature of a probing amendment. On the first day in Committee your Lordships decided overwhelmingly that a person may only obtain an order subject to the consent of the High Court, Family Division. You do not need to be a lawyer—I am a very long-in-the-tooth lawyer—to know that applications to the High Court of any sort are apt to be expensive. In respect of what could be an extremely tense, complex and contested application under the Assisted Dying Act, as it will be, the issues to be dealt with by a judge could be both numerous and difficult of deliberation. It is not impossible that members of the family might wish to be heard on such an application. At all events, I put it to the Committee that we cannot legislate on this important measure knowing that access to its provisions will be confined to the better-off.

Most people, particularly those lacking in confidence and articulacy, will not be able to bring an application of this sort without legal assistance. If they want to intervene in the proceedings, similarly they will not be able to do so without legal assistance. That of course means expense—sadly, very considerable expense. I therefore tabled this amendment with a simple objective, which is to make the Bill democratic and fair—a Bill of equal access—and I hope that it will commend itself to the Committee. I am well aware that there may be defects in its phrasing—

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, before the noble Lord concludes, he has indicated his expectation that the level of cost will be pretty significant. Can he give us in very broad terms an assessment of what the range of probable or likely cost might be?

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

The short answer is no. Lawyers charge very different amounts. A city lawyer charging £500 or £700 an hour is rather different from a country lawyer charging £100 or £200. It will also depend, as I said, on the complexity, but one is talking of thousands, not hundreds, of pounds. That is about the best I can do on that. However, as I said, I hope that the principle will commend itself to the Committee and that necessary changes to the drafting of my amendment can be dealt with prior to the next stage. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Lord Bishop of Carlisle]

My Lords, I speak in support of the comments made by the noble Lords, Lord Cormack, Lord Winston and Lord Deben. As the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, has just made clear, the Bill seeks to amend Section 2 of the Suicide Act 1961. This should be made explicit throughout the Bill: it will allow doctors to assist in the suicide of a terminally ill patient. Regardless of a person’s state of health, if they deliberately end their own life, they are committing suicide rather than simply hastening the process of dying. Anyone else involved in this act is assisting a suicide.

In making this as clear as possible, the amendments in this grouping, some of which have my name attached to them, are seeking to be constructive. As has been mentioned, some strident voices in society claim that this is a euthanasia Bill; it is clearly not. But outside this place, there is some confusion about what the Bill is seeking to legalise, which must be dispelled. First, doctors must understand exactly what the Bill will require of them. Secondly, the terminally ill, who might seek to take advantage of provisions within the Bill, must understand that ultimately they will be required to take their own lives. Finally, society must understand the change to the law that Parliament is considering.

The amendments encourage us to move beyond mere slogans. They introduce an element of clarity which is a prerequisite for proper scrutiny. They also bring sharply into focus what the Bill seeks to do and what it does not.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, it is a besetting vice of politics to use language which is designed to achieve the maximum of impact and the minimum of definition; I very much agree with the words spoken just now by the noble Lord, Lord Deben. In doing so, we degrade our politics. One expects that in advertising; one does not expect it in politics and in government, and it is very bad for the confidence of the public in politics and the legislative process.

There is a better model that it would be worth looking at for a moment. A Bill was brought into the Scottish Parliament by Margo MacDonald entitled the Assisted Suicide (Scotland) Bill; it was not entitled the assisted dying Bill. There is the model of precision, accuracy and candour which the Committee should follow. We should support the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill.

Mesothelioma

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Tuesday 9th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks]

It is absolutely not the case that there is insufficient funding for research. As I have said more than once, the case is that, at the moment, there is not a suitable number of applications for research. The funding is very much there. As to any question of insurers making some profit out of this, I will look into that. It is contrary to what the Government wish to achieve.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, when the noble Lord, Lord Freud, brought in the mesothelioma legislation he did so undoubtedly in good faith. Yet, sufferers from this terrible industrial disease have now been failed not only by employers and insurers but by the Government themselves. Has the Lord Chancellor authorised the noble Lord to apologise on behalf of the Government for his decision to take up to 25% of compensation awards for costs—conduct which has been ruled by judicial review in the High Court to be unlawful? The noble Lord still has not explained to the House why the Government have failed to honour their commitment, given in terms by the Minister, Mike Penning, to set the levy on employer’s liability insurance at 3% of gross written premiums, which would have enabled better compensation and more funding for sustained research.

[Lord Faulks]

Compensation is full at the moment, as the noble Lord knows. I reject the allegation that the Government have done nothing. Not only are they promoting research; they have also, with their Big Tent meeting in June, encouraged much greater co-operation between lawyers acting for claimants to ensure that medical employment records are swiftly obtained. What is most important is that these claimants obtain compensation quickly and at as high a level as they can.

Legal Aid

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Thursday 4th December 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether, in the light of criticism from the judiciary, they plan to reconsider their policies for legal aid.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Faulks) (Con)]

My Lords, we have a good working relationship with the judiciary, and I am a strong advocate of the independence of judicial decision-making. When concerns are raised by the judiciary, the Government reflect upon them. The government policy on legal aid continues to be that limited legal aid resources are made available for the most serious cases and to the most financially vulnerable.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister acknowledge that in a judgment on 31 October the President of the Family Division made some excoriating observations, of general application, on the unjust effects of the denial of legal aid in a case where parents stand to lose custody of their child for ever? He stated that to “require” them,

“to face the local authority’s application without proper representation … would be unconscionable … it would involve a breach of their rights under Articles 6 and 8 of the Convention; it would be a denial of justice”.

In the words of the judge,

“the State has simply washed its hands of the problem”.

What steps is the Lord Chancellor taking to ensure that Her Majesty’s Government are not in breach of their legal obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act to ensure that no parent facing proceedings for the removal of a child is prevented by a lack of resources from getting paid legal representation?

[Lord Faulks]

It used to be a convention that judges did not criticise politicians and politicians did not criticise judges. I do not propose to depart from that convention. What I can say is that both those litigants have in fact been able to get legal aid. There remain the exceptional funding provisions under Section 10 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act, which apply to cases in which there is said to be a violation of the convention or an EU provision. In fact there is a difference, and one should not conflate this, between scope and eligibility. Usually there is scope for these things, but the individual applicants nevertheless have to satisfy the tests of eligibility.

Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Friday 18th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, I am against the Bill, but I think it right that your Lordships are debating it and the issues to which it gives rise. The decision ought to be made eventually and in due course by the elected House, but the debate that has taken place in the nation at large has not yet been adequate to enable society and Parliament to come to a final view.

If I were terminally ill and in great distress, I would want to be assisted to die—or I think that I would. So I am not wholly opposed to the principle of physician-assisted suicide. However, that I might want that choice for myself is not a good enough reason for me to vote for the Bill. We are more than autonomous individuals; we are members of society. In many circumstances, there are things that we know that it is right to forgo for the benefit of others, and my legal right to be assisted to die would mean the vulnerability of others.

Safeguards are crucial and those in the Bill are wholly inadequate. The language of “coercion or duress” fails to capture the insidious, abusive pressures that family members and carers can bring to bear. The term “mental capacity” fails to capture the growing guilt and collapse of self-worth that may lead people to come to the view that they should not continue to be a burden to others. The doctors whose responsibility it would be to certify that the criteria have been met cannot be in a position to assess whether such pressures have occurred. I wonder indeed whether any effective safeguards are possible—but of course this ought to be examined in Committee. The very existence of a legal option of assisted dying would itself constitute an additional pressure.

Of course we should be deeply compassionate to the people in the predicament that this Bill seeks to address, but another form of compassion would be to invest in high-quality end-of-life care for all.

If the Bill becomes law we cross a Rubicon. We would have made it legal deliberately to terminate the lives of our innocent fellows before their natural term. To legalise is at least to go a long way to normalise, even to routinise. I am worried about a progressive coarsening of the sensibility of our society. I am sure that if the Bill becomes law it will distort the ethos of the medical and nursing professions. “Thus far and no further” may seem to be rock solid today, but it will crumble tomorrow. There will quickly be pressures of compassion and economics—so many dependent people, so little public funding available—to extend the scope of the legislation. It will be a short step to legislate for physician-assisted suicide for those suffering great distress with non-terminal illness, and then other short steps to euthanasia for infants born with disabilities or people with dementia. A course of events of this kind is what has been seen in Holland and Belgium, where, incidentally, reporting and monitoring have become lax. We have heard that in the state of Oregon the proportion of candidates for assisted dying who are referred for psychological evaluation has fallen.

I may give offence in what I am about to say and, if that is the case, I would very much regret it. However, I do not think that it is indecent, irrelevant or extravagant to note that history shows that periodically there are aberrations in societies from the norms of kindness and respect for life. There have always been spiritual, intellectual and political leaders available to justify the burning of heretics and witches, pogroms and genocides, and the elimination of so-called degenerates such as homosexuals and mental defectives, as well as the enemies of the revolution. We have seen the horrors in Bosnia. We see today the horrors in Syria and Iraq. Civilisation is always fragile. We look back into history and look around our contemporary world at these psychosocial madnesses with horror. I would look forward with horror to a society in which it became normal to expedite the deaths of the very old, the gravely ill and the incapable.

That, of course, is not what the authors of the Bill wish for, nor does anyone in this House. However, the authors of the Bill invite us to take a crucial step along that path, which could lead us a very long way from where we want to be.

Prisons: Overcrowding

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Monday 16th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks]

My Lords, as the noble Lord says, the level of crime has gone down under this Government. Sentences are longer than they were, as the sentencing guidelines suggest. Unfortunately, while serious crime remains a problem, that is unlikely to change. I take the noble Lord’s point, but I cannot announce any investigation from the Dispatch Box.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, the House has just given a Second Reading to the Serious Crime Bill, which creates new imprisonable offences and provides for longer sentences for existing offences. Does the Minister not think that the Home Office should think more carefully before it introduces torrents of legislation that place great pressure on the Prison Service, which is already highly stressed and at the limits of capacity?

[Lord Faulks]

The Serious Crime Bill is intended to deal with serious crime, which unfortunately is a problem. If serious crime is committed, sadly it will result in sentences of imprisonment.

Civil Legal Aid (Remuneration) (Amendment) (No. 3) Regulations 2014

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Wednesday 7th May 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stern (CB)]

My Lords, we in this House owe a great deal to the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, for his untiring attempts to preserve access to justice for vulnerable and powerless people—the legally aided claimants. I rise in support. I wanted to ensure that we had on record the concerns of some of the excellent people who work hard to get access to justice for powerless people, and I felt very privileged to hear the contribution from the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Surbiton, who is one of the stars in that firmament. Liberty does a great deal of this sort of work—I declare an interest as a trustee of the Civil Liberties Trust—but Liberty says that from its experience,

“the prospect of irrecoverable costs will place an unsustainable burden on claimant lawyers, making it simply too risky to pursue legal aid claims”.

I also want to mention young legal aid lawyers. Personally, and I am sure that other noble Lords will agree with me, I think we should be grateful that there is an organisation called Young Legal Aid Lawyers, and one wonders what they live on. The organisation has written to me about its work on legal aid immigration cases and the fear that the firms that these lawyers work for, in spite of their commitment to social justice, just cannot afford the risk of taking on some of these cases, even when they feel deeply that an injustice has taken place.

The Howard League for Penal Reform is extremely concerned about the effect of this measure on vulnerable people, including serving prisoners and those leaving prison. The Howard League referred me to the 2009 case of G, regarding a young person in trouble who was sleeping rough in a car. Through the Howard League he got a solicitor who brought judicial review proceedings about the responsibility to house him. Eventually the case reached the House of Lords where the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale, supported by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, came out with a judgment that has resulted in a profound change in the way in which homeless young people are dealt with by local authorities. That one case has had a substantial effect on the lives of many children and saved a great deal of money.

Other judicial review cases have profoundly affected and improved the treatment of vulnerable prisoners—for example, a successful judicial review challenge with regard to the failure to transfer a prisoner with mental health problems from prison to a secure hospital for treatment; a successful judicial review challenge on behalf of a severely disabled prisoner in relation to the prison authorities’ failure to provide him with a motorised wheelchair and allocate him to an adapted disabled cell; a successful judicial review claim on behalf of a female prisoner with regard to the lack of disabled facilities in women’s open prisons; a successful judicial review on behalf of a prisoner with learning disabilities relating to the prison authorities’ failure to adapt offending behaviour programmes; and a successful judicial review challenge on behalf of a prisoner to stop prison authorities from reading his legal mail.

Those are all important matters that relate to the just treatment of vulnerable individuals and those who face discrimination. They are decisions that change the way in which things are done so that prisoners with learning disabilities can do offending behaviour programmes and maybe get parole, prisoners with serious mental health problems go to hospital and get treated and disabled prisoners are treated with respect for their human dignity. Does the Minister not regret just slightly that these sorts of developments will become more rare? Will he explain what he actually has against people such as those who have been described during this debate getting the wrongs that are done to them righted?

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, we should be grateful to the members of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee and the Joint Committee on Human Rights for their two excellent reports; and, of course, to the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, for securing this debate. Parliament ought to be vigilant for the liberties of the people. The committees and the noble Lord have indeed been so.

There are constitutional principles at stake in these regulations of bedrock importance: the principle that effective remedy should be available against arbitrary government and the principle that there should be equality under the law. Indeed, it is the rule of law itself which is in question. The law should be for the convenience of the people and not their governors. It is essential, therefore, that remedy should be available that is practical for an aggrieved citizen to seek, and that is available regardless of his personal means, against a public body that conducts itself in a manner that is unlawful, procedurally incorrect, incompetent, oppressive or unreasonable. If judicial review is not available to enable a challenge to wrongful decisions by the state or its agencies, we move away from a liberal constitution and towards executive absolutism.

Noble and learned Lords have explained in exactly what detailed respects these regulations are so offensive and how they would do their damage in practice. I pay tribute to them as I do to the range of admirable organisations and individuals who have made representations to us. It is extraordinary that we should be asked to rely on the funding of remedy against bad government at the discretion of the same Government who are themselves being impugned.

If it is unsure that legal aid will be available for the preparation of meritorious cases, then the freedom to seek judicial review is no more than the proverbial freedom of the poor man to dine at the Ritz. If a significant number of applications will not, under these regulations, be able to proceed, we lose important opportunities for the clarification of the law and for the improvement of public administration that the pressure of judicial review brings about.

Are these regulations really designed to save money? The Explanatory Memorandum asks us to accept that they are, and says that the primary objective of the Government in bringing in these regulations is to bear down on the overall cost of legal aid. I do not believe it. The Ministry of Justice’s estimate of how much might be saved is in the range, as the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, mentioned, of between £1 million and £3 million. That is an extraordinarily vague assessment. We are also told by the department that somewhere between 20% and 69% of applications, if one goes by recent experience, would no longer receive legal aid. Again, the vagueness of that range—between 20% and 69% of cases—is horrifying. It would seem that the department has not done its homework and, certainly, that it has no clue as to how much it might be going to save. That is before we consider what would happen to net costs. There can be little doubt that the costs of the changes brought in by these regulations would be shunted elsewhere and would certainly not, in the end, be avoided.

Nor has the department been able to make clear how the payments system will work. Reasonably enough, if solicitors and advocates cannot foresee with any confidence that they will be paid, they will not be willing to take on cases. This is a shoddy and improper way in which to legislate. I also believe that the generality of citizens of this country, if apprised of the significance of the issues at stake, will be more than happy to pay whatever taxes it takes to pay for a proper system of judicial review.

Prisons: Education and Training

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Thursday 3rd April 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patel of Bradford (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Bakewell (Lab)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Faulks]

The noble and learned Lord is referring to the Strangeways report. I entirely accept that rehabilitation should be a key part of prison. The noble and learned Lord will recall that the transforming rehabilitation reforms mean that those serving short sentences for the first time will now be able to obtain support after leaving prison and will be enabled by means of resettlement prisons to have some continuity in the support that they receive inside and outside. I accept his general observations. It is a matter very much to be borne in mind.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, whatever the Justice Secretary is now saying, is not the reality of the situation that his policy is preventing family and friends sending books to prisoners? Does not a state which treats its prisoners with gratuitous harshness and which seeks to suppress the life of the mind put itself and society to shame?