Legal Aid

Andrew George Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2011 Westminster Hall

[Dr Huppert]

My hon. Friend raises a number of issues, some of which I will come on to talk about. There is no doubt that this issue is a challenge, and there is no easy solution with which to protect all those vulnerable groups. Ideas such as that mentioned by my hon. Friend, or those suggested by the Law Society, may provide a better option.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent case and I congratulate him on that. Does he agree that rather than being largely budget driven, the review should begin with an understanding that legal justice is inextricably linked to social justice? Homelessness, for example, will be narrowly defined by these changes at a time when the Government’s policies on homelessness, housing benefit and other areas are already having a disruptive impact in that area. We need a legal aid system that is flexible enough to assist those who will find themselves on the margins of society.

[Dr Huppert]

I thank my hon. Friend for his valuable contribution to the debate. He is right: social justice lies at the heart of much of what is happening. The lack of social justice in this country, and the widening disparity between the rich and poor, already existed under the previous Government. That disparity is a sorry blight for us all and affects much of public policy. We know that one of the worst problems is the effect that social injustice and deprivation have on health. That is a much more fundamental problem to be solved than exactly what happens in an A and E hospital, and the same goes for the examples provided by my hon. Friend.

Family law particularly concerns me. I am indebted to a number of people for drawing my attention to the issue, and I would particularly like to thank Jo Miles, a Fellow in Law at Trinity college Cambridge, where I used to be a Fellow. She has made great efforts to produce evidence-based assessments of the proposals in the Green Paper, and she has also been in touch with Ministers.

The Green Paper’s reforms for family law constitute a radical reduction in the number of private family law issues for which legal aid will be available. That policy is based on two premises. To say those are outright false is perhaps going too far, but they are questionable and not well justified. The premises are first that spending on legal aid fuels litigation, and secondly that mediation is the clear alternative.

In some cases, there is no doubt that lawyers on each side—I declare an interest as a non-lawyer—ramp up the case to earn fees, and make a tense situation worse for the individuals as well as expensive for the state and of course for the side that does not have legal aid. However, it is not clear that that is common or regular. In fact, it is probably because clients can currently see a solicitor that litigation is avoided in many cases. Solicitors can play a very important role in guiding their clients towards agreed resolutions or advising them that their case is too weak to fight. Without professional guidance, badly founded and prepared litigation conducted by the client in person will surely follow and grow. That will mean an inevitable and probably substantial rise in the number of litigants in person in the family courts and the associated costs. I have seen no evidence for the Government’s assumption that there will be no significant impact on court operating costs. I strongly suspect that what is saved in legal aid may simply be spent in court costs.

The result will be that, as ever, those with money will have access to justice. Those who do not have the cash and who also lack the energy and resources to litigate by themselves will simply not have access to justice. Those who have not been able to enforce the other party’s private law responsibilities will have to fall back on the state for housing and other support—another cost to the Exchequer.

Therefore, the removal of public funding from the areas of family law that we are discussing may have the opposite effect on the finances to that which is intended. On a related note, it may also hamper successful mediation. Studies have shown that one of the main reasons why mediation has been successful has been the threat of litigation. That encourages people to adopt sensible positions and so to settle. Will that still work in the absence of litigation as a plausible threat?

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Huppert]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. Yes, mediation can play a good role. There are a number of cases in which we need to move away from the legalistic approach to resolving problems and towards mediatory approaches. However, as I said in response to the point raised by the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant), mediation does not always work, and where will we get all the mediators from? We must ensure that there is a fall-back—a safety net—for people.

I cannot deal with all the issues relating to this area now. I assume that the Government have seen the briefings from the Children’s Society and the Special Educational Consortium and I hope that they will consider what they say. I am sure that other hon. Members have seen them as well.

[Andrew George]

My hon. Friend is being very patient in allowing me to intervene again. The theme underlying this is public service and its improvement. There is an important link, which must not be lost by the Government. They must ensure that those people seeking to benefit from public services see an improvement in them. We have found this in the Select Committee on Health, which has been considering clinical negligence. The removal of legal aid is proposed in that area. How can a service move on, learn lessons and improve if those who are served poorly by it do not have access to the right kind of justice?

[Dr Huppert]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I hope to talk later about the effect of the Jackson changes, how legal aid will work then and the double whammy that people may face with the two changes being rolled up together.

Lastly on the subject of special educational needs, I am sure that other hon. Members have had constituents coming to see them, as I have. My constituents take special educational needs appeals for their children very seriously. They are very concerned. A number of people have come to see me. They are terrified both about what will happen to their own children and about the future. They see education as critical to their children’s future. I could talk about other aspects, but time moves on apace.

Hon. Members may be aware that I have a passionate interest in matters to do with immigration and asylum. I chair the all-party group on refugees, as well as being a member of the Home Affairs Committee, which is chaired by the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), and it is a great pleasure to see him here today. I am of course pleased that asylum will remain within the scope of legal aid, but it is extremely concerning that other immigration cases have been excluded. Even under existing arrangements, immigration legal aid providers are struggling to remain viable; if we confine legal aid to asylum, it is doubtful whether good quality practitioners will continue to be available. There is already a surfeit of poor quality lawyers and advisers working in this field, and we would all benefit from better provision because many of them are not up to scratch.