Andy Slaughter
Main Page: Andy Slaughter (Labour - Hammersmith and Chiswick)Department Debates - View all Andy Slaughter's debates with the Ministry of Justice
(11 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Chris Grayling
I am very concerned to pursue that. I am aware of the issues that my hon. Friend mentions. It may well be down to the fact that there was a surge in cases prior to the legal aid changes that came into effect in April, but I can give him an assurance that this is very much on my radar, and I intend to pursue it.
Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
Last week, the Lord Chancellor was telling some of the 16,000 respondents to his legal aid consultation that their responses had been automatically deleted, but he must have read some of them, as they provoked his embarrassing U-turn on choice of solicitor yesterday. Will he now also U-turn on forcing small firms out of business and on giving cash incentives for guilty pleas, and will he abandon the further cuts in civil legal aid that will, according to the Parole Board among others, cost several times the £6 million he claims they will save?
Chris Grayling
Labour Members really do not get it, do they? Government Minister consults on proposals, listens, makes some modifications, and gives an early decision to help people, so they are not attacking proposals that have changed. Labour Members never listened to anybody when they were in government; they just ploughed ahead regardless.
The hon. Gentleman is the person who said, in 2011, that the Government should look for
“efficiencies in the criminal legal aid system,”
to
“save…money”.—[Official Report, 2 November 2011; Vol. 534, c. 958-9.]
We are now doing that; they have changed their minds. It is shambolic.