Citizens Advice Bureaux

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, for initiating this debate. As a councillor for many years I have held many hundreds of surgeries for local residents. People have come to discuss problems related to housing, often around rent levels or the conditions of their homes. Over the years I have dealt with countless issues around benefits, debt, tax, employment law and disability. Competent though I have been, like most councillors, at the broad generality of such inquiries, I am only too well aware of the number of times that I have said, “I think you ought to go and see the CAB”. I would give them the address and advise them to phone ahead to book an appointment and, on occasion, to be certain that the case was being properly made, I would accompany them to that meeting. Over the years I also managed to secure CAB advice sessions in local community centres, churches and council offices, making them accessible to more people because I knew that there was unmet local demand. Almost everyone has heard of the CAB but not everyone has known how to access it, which is why signposting by council, libraries, GP surgeries and voluntary agencies has been so important.

There seems to be a unity of view in your Lordships’ House, and I would like to suggest a way in which the Government might approach the provision of free legal and other advice. This would be by developing a policy towards CABs, law centres and other voluntary organisations such as Shelter from the perspective of the individual rather than just the provider. My point is that, given the funding cuts announced and anticipated, I do not know how vulnerable individuals are going to get the help they need, when they need it and where they need it. lf law centres close and income from legal aid work is substantially reduced to organisations currently in receipt of it, forcing further closures of CAB centres and other centres in the voluntary sector, what will happen to the individuals who lack the money and resources to do things for themselves? How does that drive our equalities agenda? What will MPs and councillors be able to say at their surgeries? To whom will they be able to refer those vulnerable people? Not everything will go, of course, but the agencies involved, all of them part of the big society, work together now with case referrals to make the best use of expertise so that not all agencies need to offer the same services.

I hope that a way forward can be found that is built up from the needs of vulnerable people and then mapped across a geographical locality to ensure that coverage is maintained, rather than just implementing standard budget cuts across the board and hoping that local authorities, themselves facing large cuts, will sort things out at a local level. They can help, but the situation requires the Government to think clearly about how to provide a reasonable and fair level of support across all parts of the country.

The heart of the issue is equal access to legal advice. Those who cannot afford to purchase it need to be protected by Governments, for that is their role. Governments are there to promote social justice and social inclusion. The citizen advice bureaux lie at the heart of equal access. I hope that Ministers will take note of this, act upon it and use the opportunity of the cross-government review of government funding advice to address the problem of top-down models of funding not working on the ground as well as they should.