Legal Aid: Social Welfare and Family Law

Debate between Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede and Lord Falconer of Thoroton

Monday 18th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for that question, specifically on the point of advice deserts. There is no doubt we are facing substantial challenges in that respect. The previous Government allowed the number of duty solicitors available to drop by 26% between 2017 and 2023. The MoJ and the Legal Aid Agency are working with providers where there are specific issues; for example, setting up a list of providers available to provide immigration advice to clients in the south-west.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Bach’s Question is rightly focused on social welfare law and family law, which all too often get forgotten. One of the real pressures on the system is dealing with domestic abuse cases. The courts have introduced a system recently in certain courts, called the pathfinder courts, where there is an early assessment of domestic abuse allegations and the effect trying them will have on children. Could the Minister tell us whether the Government support those pathfinder schemes and how they are getting on?

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

I pay tribute to my predecessor, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy. When I was in opposition, he made a point of encouraging me to visit a pathfinder court in Dorset. I was very impressed by what I saw, and the Government are pleased to carry on that initiative. Again, I am afraid the further rollout of pathfinder is also subject to those allocation discussions, which are ongoing, but I absolutely endorse the point my noble friend makes about the importance of pathfinder, not least because it is a way of highlighting and cracking down on domestic abuse in the court system.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Debate between Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede and Lord Falconer of Thoroton

Lords Hansard - part two & Committee stage
Monday 8th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to say something from the Back Benches about my experience of sitting on scrutiny committees, which the noble Lord has just spoken about. I have sat on scrutiny committees for reviewing out of court disposals for both the British Transport Police and the Metropolitan Police. In my experience, they are good committees because they bring together a range of interested parties on whether out of court disposals are appropriate—magistrates, probation, CPS, police, YOTs and sometimes, in addition, there may be housing, education and health people from local government to review the appropriateness of out of court disposals.

In my experience, this system is extremely erratic and not systemised in any particular way. My experience is that the results of reviewing out of court disposals are not fed up through the Home Office, so when I have asked questions of both the MoJ and the Home Office, there is no way of reviewing whether out of court disposals have been appropriately used or of collating the numbers, because the use of scrutiny committees varies so much across the country—that is my understanding. I was interested to listen to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, talk about the amendment tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, and whether he is trying to introduce a code of practice to try to regularise these out of court disposal scrutiny committees. They are a good idea, but they need to be standardised across the country.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)]

I am very much obliged to my noble friend Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede for that intervention, which goes to an incredibly important point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, which is that there needs to be proper scrutiny of the police being given a power to, in effect, punish people and impose conditions. There are two aspects to that, which the noble and learned Lord identified in his speech, so beautifully read by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, even though it is so late: first, that the code of practice is complied with and, secondly, that there is consistency throughout the country in relation to the application of out of court disposals. I would be very interested to hear what the Minister has to say on how that point will be dealt with. We support the amendment proposed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd.

I also agree with Amendments 170, 171 and 190, which seek to ensure that a person may be authorised to give a discretionary or community caution only if they have been authorised by a prosecuting authority for those purposes and a prosecuting authority must be satisfied that that person has received adequate training and is suitable to carry out those functions. Amendment 190 is a consequential amendment on that. I support these amendments and am very interested to hear what the Ministry of Justice has to say about them. I cannot think that it would not agree with this; some level of quality must be required for somebody who is going to give that caution.

Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, made points to the effect that this will be more expensive. He did not mention, because he is too kind—or he may have done, but I missed it—the additional £13 million that the Commons paper identifies for the cost of introduction, in addition to the £105 million and £15 million. We are going to spend all this money to achieve no greater victim satisfaction and without any evidence that it reduces reoffending. Why?