Draft Civil Legal Aid (Merits Criteria and Information about Financial Resources) (Amendment) Regulations 2015

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Monday 23rd November 2015 General Committees

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Davies. It is also a pleasure to be opposite the Minister. I have missed our debates on legal aid regulations a great deal, and I had to ask my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) to give me this opportunity as I was having such withdrawal symptoms—I find the debates so racy.

The Minister is right that the amendments are minor but important to the scheme set out under LASPO. One might also add that they are fairly technical. It is the Opposition’s view, and also the view, I think, of the non-governmental organisations I have spoken with that work in the field, such as Resolution, that the changes are, as the Minister says, necessary and positive. We therefore do not oppose them.

I have nothing to say about the detail of the regulations, but I will make just two points. The first point, as I think the Minister knows of old, is that our objection is not so much to the way in which he is amending the scope for civil legal aid under LASPO, but to the fact that the scheme itself, as set out in the Act, puts us in the position of constantly having to make such amendments. The scheme’s very nature, with the move from matters being within scope and less being excluded to everything being out of scope but included, inevitably leads to a plethora of such amendments arising out of new legislation, changes to the policy or mistakes made in the original drafting or in included provisions.

The Minister might not be able to answer this question today, but I am sure that he will let me know his response: how many pieces of secondary legislation that have necessitated alterations to the scope have had to go through Committee since LASPO was enacted? That is important, and not just to show how the scheme works or does not work, but because every further amendment complicates the legal aid regime, and the more complicated it becomes, the more difficult it becomes—even for experienced practitioners—regarding cost, navigating the scheme and ensuring that people have a proper entitlement. I therefore hope not only that the amendment is made in statute, but that it is properly publicised so that those who can take advantage of the changes are aware of them.

The other point that I would like the Minister to comment on relates to regulation 3, which was brought to the attention of the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments. It was originally—and erroneously—made by negative process and subsequently had to be revoked. I am sometimes puzzled by why a particular provision goes through the affirmative or negative process, but that clearly has consequences for how it is debated and what scrutiny it comes under. In this case, can the Minister shed a little more light on what happened? That is clearly an important point, and I do not say that for point scoring, as such things are not always immediately apparent, but, as it is difficult enough for parliamentarians to follow the process, we would hope that the experts who draft and allocate statutory instruments know where they are to go. I am glad that was picked up and dealt with, but any light that can be shed on why it happened in the first place would be helpful.