Legal Aid Reform

Andrew Smith Excerpts

Thursday 27th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I want to speak about these proposals specifically in relation to prisoners, not when they are on trial but after sentencing or when they are in prison on remand. The proposed savings of £4 million mean that they will no longer be able to access legal advice and will instead be expected to use the internal complaints system when they have problems.

It is unpopular to speak up for prisoners’ rights in this House, but it is so important that we do so, because it is a mark of our being a civilised society that we set parameters on what we do to people when we remove their liberty. Removing their liberty does not equate with removing all their human and legal rights.

[Mr Andrew Smith (Oxford East) (Lab)]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend’s point about prisoners. I am sure that she will apply it equally to those in immigration detention. The removal of legal aid from those people breaches the specific pledge given by the Lord Chancellor to this House on 18 December last year, when he said that legal aid will continue to be available to anybody whose life or liberty is at stake. Is it not essential that that promise be kept?

[Kate Green]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. I do not have time to cover immigration in detail, save to say that we are talking about people who may be returned to face homophobia, torture and appalling treatment when they have lost asylum cases or are failed immigration seekers, yet they are being denied access to legal advice contrary to the assurances that we were given in this House.

We know that people in prison are more likely to have learning difficulties or mental health problems, or to be poorly educated. They are often the product of disruptive and difficult childhoods. Many of them have arrived in prison having spent most of their childhood, to our great shame, in public care. Those people are particularly poorly equipped to advocate for themselves and to use the internal prison complaints system. It is therefore particularly important, not only in their own interests but in the interests of the smooth running of the prison, that we take the steps that we should to ensure that they are given effective opportunities to make their case.