Draft Early Legal Advice Pilot Scheme Order 2022

Afzal Khan Excerpts

Thursday 24th February 2022 General Committees

[Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell. I thank the Minister for his opening remarks. Let me say from that start that the Labour party will not oppose the draft order.

The provision of early legal advice is essential to ensure that legal issues are dealt with effectively before they escalate into more complex and costly problems. I appreciate that housing and welfare benefit issues often go hand in hand. I am glad that the scheme will allow providers to advise on housing problems alongside any welfare benefit issues that may contribute to rent arrears.

The broader the scope of legal aid, the more opportunity there is for providers to take a holistic and, ultimately, more successful approach to legal problems. Having spoken with the Law Society and the Greater Manchester Law Centre, however, I am concerned about the capacity of legal aid providers to meet the increased demands that the scheme will create, especially as those areas of law have not been in scope of legal aid for a decade. There are only two welfare benefit legal aid providers in Manchester city, and only two housing and debt legal aid providers in Middlesbrough, one of which also advises on welfare benefit law, meaning that all the new cases in Middlesbrough that arise from the pilot scheme will have to be handled by those two firms.

The issue of capacity is unlikely to be resolved by the proposed fees because most cases will require more work than a three-hour time limit will allow, meaning that in a majority of cases, providers will operate at a loss and will be discouraged from providing early legal advice. That will make it very difficult for the pilot scheme to collect accurate data about the effectiveness of early legal advice. I therefore encourage the Minister to lift the three-hour time limit or increase the proposed fixed-fee arrangements.

The pilot scheme is a welcome step in the right direction, but I hope the Minister will consider the concerns that local legal aid providers and I have raised. The Labour party supports the draft statutory instrument.

--- Later in debate ---

[Afzal Khan]

Will the Minister elaborate, for clarification, on the methodology? He talked about the 800 participants and the 800 people in the control group. How will those be separated, to ensure more clarity for people coming forward?

[James Cartlidge]

That is a perfectly good question. The selection of the participants will be undertaken independently of Government, likely by an independent evaluator appointed to the project. We are tendering for the evaluator, and that process will conclude on 2 March. We intend to use a proxy indicator of potential legal need, such as council tax arrears or social rent arrears, to identify a cohort of people who are likely to experience social welfare matters that could be resolved through early advice and assistance. As I said, they would divide into a control group who would not receive that advice and assistance, and a group who would, so that we can build up data.

On the providers, as I was saying, there is one in Middlesbrough and eight in Manchester. They all have housing contracts and therefore the capacity to provide this type of advice. That is an important point to stress.

My hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon said that it is wise to pilot, and I agree with him. We want to look at what works; that is the crucial thing for the Ministry of Justice.

The draft instrument is an important part of the Government’s work to deliver legal aid services that are based on evidence of what works, and that provide direct benefits to individuals and their social networks, to local and central Government, and, ultimately, to the taxpayer. I hope that colleagues will agree that the statutory instrument is necessary. I commend it to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.