Oral Answers to Questions

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

It certainly brings competition to bear. We are trying to take tough decisions on legal aid in a way that, where possible, impacts on the top end, not the bottom end, of the income scale. That is what we believe in, and I am surprised that Labour Members appear to disagree with us.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Has the Secretary of State read his interview with the Law Society Gazette this week? I would not blame him if he had not, because it is a bit of a car crash. Does he stand by the passages where he says that he has no evidence of a lack of public support for legal aid but has received “lots of letters”, where he is “unsure” where £160 million of Department spending has gone, and where he defends taking away a choice of solicitor because

“people in our prisons and…courts come from the most difficult and challenged backgrounds”

and are not

“great connoisseurs of legal skills”?

[Chris Grayling]

Not surprisingly, I do stand by interviews I give. We are now three years into this Government and Labour Members have no answers to any of the challenges we face. We have big financial issues to deal with and we need to create a system that is affordable. They have no alternative suggestions about how to do that.

[Mr Slaughter]

The Justice Secretary has one answer: payment by results.

Last Friday, the Justice Secretary was forced to investigate alleged overpayment to G4S and Serco on the tagging contracts. Today the Financial Times is reporting that he has suspended outsourcing prison contracts to Serco, Sodexo and Amec. Should not he review all current contracts with the chumocracy of private firms who get the MOJ’s shilling, including Capita’s disastrous running of the interpreters contract, and should not he suspend plans to hand out another £500 million of probation contracts to more of the cosy cartel?

[Chris Grayling]

Sometimes Labour Members are breathtaking. I am not going to say much to the House today about the investigation that we are carrying out into the tagging contracts; I will provide that information in due course. I simply say to Opposition Front Benchers that the contracts we are investigating date back to 2005 and were signed and put together by the previous Government.