Criminal Legal Aid Reforms

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Wednesday 4th September 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to be here under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) for his outstanding speech—a tour de force—demolishing the Government proposals. I also thank all hon. Members who have made very fine speeches on a range of issues—and, indeed, all 20 Members who have turned up, not one of whom have I heard give unqualified support to the Government proposals; there has been much for the Minister to think about and reply to. In its way, it is almost as impressive as the 31 Members who attended the Backbench Business Committee debate. There has also been a debate in the other place.

As my hon. Friend said, it remains a scandal that the Government have not provided any of their own time to debate these issues. We had a year going through the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill—now an Act—but these measures are equally controversial and should have been the subject of primary legislation or, if not, certainly given ample Government time. We will no doubt return to the issues in other debates, but such debates all seem to be up to Back-Benchers and the Opposition to supply. I remind the Minister that the Government’s own lawyer said about the consultation document:

“We consider that the proposals in the consultation paper will undermine the accountability of public bodies to the detriment of society as a whole and the vulnerable in particular.”

More than 100,000 people have so far signed the petition opposing the proposals.

In the few moments that I have this morning, I want to look at where we are. A two-month consultation process earlier this year yielded 15,000 responses. We had the climbdown on choice, which was welcome as far as it went. The Joint Committee on Human Rights then intervened, asking the Government to pause, partly because some of the proposals might be unlawful. That was rejected out of hand by the Lord Chancellor, who said that he had to get on and make the cuts.

The areas of particular concern that the Joint Committee identified for review were the proposals on judicial review, residency and prisoner rights that, on the Government’s own estimation, make savings of no more than £6 million. The Government still cannot say—the Minister may want to correct me—what the savings will be from introducing the residency test. Some have pointed out the appalling consequences of such a test for the relatives abroad of those who have died in custody, the Gurkhas or other groups for whom justice should be done. The Government say that those proposals will save £6 million.

I hope the Minister has read the excellent paper by Dr Nick Armstrong at Matrix Chambers. It has been endorsed by the probation service, which says that, cumulatively, the proposals will cost about £30 million. The Lord Chancellor is simply wrong to say that it is on the grounds of cost that we must proceed in a hurry to make those fundamental constitutional changes.

We are told by the usual channels—a leak to the Law Society Gazette—that tomorrow there will be an oral statement and the publication of the Government’s response. I am not sure whether the Minister is in a position to confirm that today. He might as well, because we do not know whether the Lord Chancellor will even turn up to the statement tomorrow; someone might be rude to him on the way there or he might have to go and do a bit of canvassing in a marginal seat.

Let us hear what the Minister can tell us this morning. Will he answer my questions? First, given that choice is back in, what is the savings target now? Is it still £220 million or has it changed? What effect will the second consultation, which we are told will take place shortly, have on the timetable for implementation of the changes? What will the new tendering regime look like? Is the decline in the number of firms by 75%—1,600 to 400—still on the table?

Will anything be done on the issue of specialism? A lot has been said about that in relation to, say, black and minority ethnic firms and small rural firms, but these measures go across the board. One submission that has already been mentioned was from Thompsons Solicitors, which represents a lot of public sector workers such as paramedics, nurses and care workers, who are often accused of serious offences that have implications for not just their liberty but their continued career and employment. They need specialist representation, and it is very unlikely that they will obtain that under the proposals.

On average, what will be the costs of a bid? We are told in the consultation paper that they need to be digitally prepared and done in a certain way. The process will be extremely expensive for small firms, which may not be able to make the investment with any certainty that they will be successful at the end of the day. Will the Government’s proposals still discriminate against small, rural or specialist firms?

The Government have said nothing so far on the issue of the perverse incentives. It is nonsense to suggest that the same fee should be payable for an early plea, a cracked trial or a short trial of up to three days. Given his background, the Minister should know that and that it must be addressed at some stage. Retaining choice is a step forward, but it is not the magic bullet that will sort out all the problems.

The Government have been asked to pause. They are bringing forward a second consultation, but they have not addressed the main reason for the pause. They have not addressed the issue of legality that the Joint Committee has raised, and the timetable thus far has shown the confusion and inadequacy of the proposals.

The other matter I want to raise with the Minister is the cumulative effect that this avalanche of proposals is having on the criminal justice system as a whole. We saw in the research from the shadow Home Secretary this morning that the number of domestic violence cases being handed by the police to the Crown Prosecution Service has fallen by 13%—primarily due, it appears, to a lack of police numbers and time.

Reference has been made to the crisis in the CPS. Again, a leading defence firm that responded to the consultation estimated that in 85% of cases, disclosure is not supplied timeously by the CPS. The consequence is more applications in court and more wasted costs orders against the CPS.

The court amalgamations—we are told that there may be more closures coming forward—are also causing great problems of management for magistrates, court staff and the CPS. The continuing interpreters fiasco is not only a problem in itself but an indication of where we might be in relation to the proposals. Having a system in which the lowest common denominator drives down prices to the lowest possible level means that we just cannot get the people to do the work. There will be solicitors who either cannot or will not work for those rates, because the costs are just too low.

We have not seen the full impact of the cuts enshrined in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, which were introduced in April. We have not seen the effect of other savings such as the defence costs orders, which were introduced at the end of last year. They effectively mean that if a person is paying privately for their defence and is acquitted, they may now recover only 25% of their actual costs.

There seems to be an issue of justice there; people should be put back into the position where they should have been had they not been falsely accused of offences. None the less, there will be a saving there. Will the Minister say what that will be? Equally, what additional costs will we increasingly see to litigants in person, and what are the additional costs that will come about because of some of the so-called cuts that Dr Armstrong has identified in his papers?

The Government are hardwiring inefficiency and injustice into the criminal justice system. There are inefficiencies in the system and they should be taken out. Several hon. Members have alluded to possible ways of making savings in a way that would improve the efficiency of the courts and the administration of justice. The Government’s proposals offer the worst of both worlds. They are increasing inefficiency, making things more uncertain and putting delay into the system. At the same time, they are unlikely to achieve many of the savings that the Government have outlined.

On the way to the Chamber, I was reading an article by Stephen Sedley, one of our most eminent judges, in the London Review of Books. He says:

“The decision in 2012 to put a political enforcer, Chris Grayling, in charge of the legal system carried a calculated message: the rule of law was from now on, like everything else, going to be negotiable.”

He adds that

“departmental housekeeping is being used not to rebalance but to unbalance a central element of the constitution.”

We have to make cuts in legal aid and elsewhere in the public finances. However, putting in jeopardy the justice system of which this country is so proud and on which so many people rely is not the way to do it.