Dangerous Driving

Annette Brooke Excerpts

Monday 27th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)]

In this Chamber, we often say that it is a pleasure to take part in a debate, but it gives me no pleasure to have to recount the awful experiences of my constituents, just as other hon. and right hon. Members have had to recount the awful experiences of theirs.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore), whose work has been a comfort, not only to me in my desire for change but, more importantly, to the families whom I have done my best to represent, as their MP, just as he has done his best to represent the family of Ross and Clare Simons. I met Ross and Clare’s family members when they visited Parliament, and as the hon. Gentleman knows, I have also had Jamie Still’s family come to visit Parliament and No. 10. I have also had to deal with the family of David and Dorothy Metcalf. Going through what we have to go through—listening, experiencing, and sitting through the awful accounts of what the victims and their families have been through—is hard enough; imagining what the families have gone through is just about impossible.

Already in this debate—more right hon. and hon. Members wish to speak, and I am pleased that they are here to do so—we have heard of too many incidents of the kind of criminal driving that destroys lives. There is simply a lack of adequate justice for victims and their families. I am pleased to have spoken to the hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Stephen Barclay) on the issue. I am aware that a number of hon. and right hon. Members are very much involved on this issue. They include my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke), who has a very recent case in her constituency, and the hon. Members for Gloucester (Richard Graham), for Dudley North (Ian Austin), for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones), and for Lincoln (Karl MᶜCartney); there are also others whose cases I am not aware of. We must all get together and ensure change, because when we do get together, I am sure that we will get change.

[Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

My constituent, whose son was killed in a driving incident nearly a year ago, contacted me very early on with her concerns about lenient sentences. Today, the driver of the car was given a 12-month sentence. I have yet to learn all the details, but on the mother’s behalf, I would like to join my hon. Friend and others here in asking the Minister to look really carefully at sentences for driving offences.

[Greg Mulholland]

I thank my hon. Friend. That is another example of a sentence, given only today, that surely cannot reflect the reality of killing someone through criminal driving. I use the phrase “criminal driving” very deliberately. This debate is entitled “Dangerous Driving”, but we are all aware that what we are actually talking about are various forms of criminal driving—any form of it that has resulted in someone losing their life. One of the weaknesses in the system is the confusion in both the sentencing framework and the sentencing guidelines as to whether particular forms of criminal driving should be regarded as particularly serious. I will come back to that important point.

I wish to relay to the House briefly the awful case of Jamie Still, who was just 16 years old, with everything to live for. He was a schoolboy in Otley, a market town in my constituency. He was out with friends on new year’s eve in 2010. At around 9 o’clock, when crossing a road in the middle of town, he was hit by a car that was travelling at 50 mph in a 30-mph shopping zone. He was flung through the air. He died later, as a result of the injuries that he sustained, in his mother’s arms; his mother managed to get to see him, but his sister did not. As people were celebrating new year’s eve and seeing in the new year, that family lost a beloved son and brother, and the community lost a young man with an awful lot to give.

Part of the awful injustice is that despite the seriousness of the crime—a crime is clearly what it is—the perpetrator was allowed to continue driving, right up to when he was sentenced. He lived only a few miles away, and was seen driving in Otley—the very place where he ended this young man’s life. It is hard to imagine the distress that that must have caused Jamie’s mother, Karen, and his sister, Rebecca. The man responsible was found to have been twice over the drink-drive limit. Eight months later, he was sentenced to four years, but the sentence was reduced to 12 months after he wrote to the judge—not the family—to say how sorry he was. That followed a two-year reduction in his possible sentence after he pleaded guilty, even though, at previous court hearings, he had not done so.

Oral Answers to Questions

Annette Brooke Excerpts

Tuesday 17th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

It will differ in a number of ways. First, the new code is written so that victims will be able to understand it—I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will agree that the previous code was not written in that way, as it was written by and for professionals. Secondly, there are specific rights in the code that were not in the previous code, such as the very important right for a victim to be able to make their personal statement in court after the sentence. Many victims have said that that is a significant step forward in enabling them to feel that they are being taken more seriously than they have been before.

[Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

7. What plans he has to review sentencing for causing death by dangerous driving.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Grayling)]

Causing death by dangerous driving is punishable by up to 14 years’ imprisonment. I have asked the Sentencing Council to look at its guidelines on causing death by driving to ensure that the sentences imposed reflect the seriousness of the offending. We are also considering whether further changes might be necessary to strengthen the law.

[Annette Brooke]

I thank the Secretary of State for his answer. Constituents who have lost a close relative in a driving incident, perhaps a young son or daughter, face the stress of a court case along with a feeling that the sentences for serious driving offences are inadequate. Does he agree that the outcome of the review and the various issues he is considering must make a difference to irresponsible driving and the subsequent loss of lives?

[Chris Grayling]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend. I feel strongly that we must take a tough approach to someone’s causing death and serious injury while disqualified from driving. Too often, it turns out that the people who commit such an offence have been disqualified again and again and do not have a licence when it happens. That is an area that I am keen to address.

Oral Answers to Questions

Annette Brooke Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

That is precisely why, despite taking the tough financial decisions, we are ensuring that anybody who cannot afford it, if they are arrested and charged with a crime, will always have access to a qualified lawyer, and qualified barrister if they need one, to provide them with a proper defence, according to the traditions of Magna Carta.

[Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

4. What recent progress he has made on improving women’s prisons.

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

13. What recent progress he has made on improving women’s prisons.

[Annette Brooke]

I was recently visited by local soroptimists, who told me about their national campaign to end the unnecessary imprisonment of women in the UK. Will the Minister give his support to this campaign and put more emphasis on community sentencing, rehabilitation and support?

[Jeremy Wright]

I will certainly have a look at the campaign to which my hon. Friend refers, but we believe that there are women who need to be imprisoned, having committed offences that justify imprisonment, and for whom, for reasons of punishment and public protection, imprisonment is appropriate. It is of course important to recognise that they have different requirements from male prisoners and to ensure that the female custodial estate reflects that. She is also right that rehabilitation is crucial. I hope she can be a little more patient and wait to hear what we have to say about the women’s custodial estate. I think she will be pleased to hear what we have to say about the need to put rehabilitation at the heart of everything we do.

Dorset Police (Funding)

Annette Brooke Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2013 Westminster Hall

[Richard Drax]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and I will come to it later on. Dorset gets no recognition for the fact that it receives 14 million visitors a year.

Evenly split between a large conurbation on one side and a scattering of rural communities on the other, the “two Dorsets” demand very different styles of policing. Rural policing involves greater distances and time and, therefore, costs, and the night-time economy in our seaside towns, particularly when summer numbers peak due to tourism, demands a significant police presence. That is an area of great concern as stretched resources have to be targeted at weekend trouble spots, leaving the rest of the county with minimal cover. Resources are stretched even further to cope with the 14 million visitors who come to Dorset each year. Added to that, we have thriving sea ports and a busy international airport. None of those factors is recognised in the police funding allocation, which, by 2018, will allow us barely to fund 1,000 officers to police the lot.

Our police and crime commissioner, Martyn Underhill, has fought valiantly for increased funding and continues to do so. As he says:

“We are the lowest funded force and have seen the worst cuts. This is wrong. I will continue to fight this.”

However, in the absence of any new funding, he is obliged to look at sponsorship, which is anathema to most police officers and to me. It has been tried elsewhere in the Met, but there is naturally great concern about the independence of the police when sponsors’ names are emblazoned on every police vehicle, station and letterhead. Admittedly, the rules are strict: sponsorship must not amount to more than 1% of a force’s total income; none of the statutory functions of the force should depend on the sponsorship; and sponsors may not interfere with police duties.

However, the potential for conflict of interest, or at least a perception of conflict of interest, is evident. I should like, if I may, to inject a note of levity here. In the future, when someone asks, why do all police officers look so young these days, the answer will be, because they use Camay! I inject a note of humour, Mr Dobbin, but I think it makes the point rather well. Policing is a serious matter, and this sponsorship business does not bode well. If the police lose their independence through sponsorship deals, can privatisation be far away? Will the Minister tell us whether there are any plans to privatise the police?

Surprisingly, the Treasury seemed less embarrassed than perhaps it should have been over the news of the Dorset police sponsorships. It may even be policy. Chief Inspector Tom Winsor, in a recent speech to the Royal United Services Institute, said:

“The provision of services to police forces by private sector organisations, and agencies and organisations in the public sector, is likely to increase markedly as efficiencies and economies have to be found.”

Whether or not sponsorship is used—and I hope it is not—the funding formula remains profoundly flawed. Its original purpose, which is to achieve a reasonable balance across counties in police service delivered and council tax paid, manifestly no longer works.

Along with Dorset police, I welcome the review of the police funding formula, which I understand from my conversations with the Minister is due in September. Police treasurers met the Home Office yesterday as the first stage in that review. As we are on this subject, may I, on behalf of our police and crime commissioner Martyn Underhill, remind the Minister of the undertaking that he gave him at their meeting on 15 May? In a significant change to the Government’s position, the Minister agreed that PCCs can now be involved in the review, and several will be invited to join the table. As the greatest losers in the funding settlement nationally, and one of the best performers despite it, Dorset should be represented. Mr Underhill would be a worthy representative and if the Minister will kindly give some kind of acknowledgement when he responds, both Mr Underhill and I would be grateful.

[Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate and I endorse his congratulations on what all our public services achieve with such scarce resources. It is commendable, and I agree that when an organisation is already cut to the bone, it is very serious to have to tackle further cuts. What is most important to my constituents, who are in the next-door constituency, is their safer neighbourhood teams. If there were any further threats to those teams, we would be in danger of losing public confidence. They have been built up with our scarce resources but are now potentially affected. I endorse my hon. Friend’s request for Martyn Underhill to join the table, because he is hard working and someone who has his feet on the ground and will know what he is talking about when he gets to that table.

[Richard Drax]

I agree with every one of my hon. Friend’s words. The safer neighbourhood teams are key to policing in Dorset, as I am sure they are around the country, and we are now getting to a point where even they are stretched, with officers being removed to deal with the night-time economy and, as I have already indicated, the other target areas of potential crime from which all towns suffer to a certain extent.

I am concerned about the Government’s plan, as I understand it, to begin the review this autumn but not report back until after the next election. We cannot wait any longer to get a proper and fair settlement, and I ask the Minister, most respectfully, to speed the process up considerably and report back before 2015. Need I remind him that there is no guarantee that he and I will be serving in government in 2015, or even be MPs? Policing is a serious matter, and the resources must be there to do the job effectively. Crime may well be down in Dorset, but that should not be an excuse to keep cutting. The previous chief constable told me repeatedly that every time Dorset police did well, more resources were taken away. I am afraid that I do not understand the logic that if someone is doing well they should lose the resources with which they can keep up the extremely high standard they have attained.

I believe, and my constituents tell me—as, I am sure, do the Minister’s—that people ideally want to see police officers on foot, patrolling their towns and villages day and night. I have argued strongly for a return to the days when each village had its own bobby living in the community. Costly though that may be in the short term, catching a potential offender in their childhood would save countless millions of pounds in the longer term.

I would like to dwell a bit on that point, and speak from my previous experience as a soldier patrolling the streets of Northern Ireland. The way in which we dominated the ground, gathered intelligence, fought against the IRA and protected the good people of Belfast and the other places in which I served, was by presence, by showing a face, patrolling the streets, being there for people to talk to, and being there to reassure, listen and pick up intelligence. The modern world relies more and more on technology, but the CCTV cameras, precious though they are, cannot possibly pick up on a patrol on the ground, on the atmosphere, the feedback, the communication and the observation, on the shop that is a bit different this morning from what it was last night because there is a gunman inside with a weapon to the shopkeeper’s head. CCTV cameras will not pick that up; police officers on foot will. When they come back, a huge amount of intelligence can be obtained by asking, “What did you see during that two-hour patrol?” When our soldiers came back everything was logged, pictures were taken and checks were done, and all the intelligence went up the line, meaning we were better informed and could do a far better and more effective job on that mission.

I am glad to say that policing does not carry the threat of being blown up, although police officers in this country tragically lose their lives in the line of duty. In Dorset, however, we are most fortunate not to have had such an incident, as far as I can recall, for many years, if at all, and long may that be the case. Nevertheless, the threat is there. I urge the Minister carefully to consider the funding formula, and to give a fairer deal to the people of Dorset, who must be treated more equitably. We are not asking for more money. We understand the restrictions that the Minister, the Government and the country face—the austerity we all face. We have heard about that again and again. What the people of Dorset are asking for is a much fairer share of the cake.

Legal Aid

Annette Brooke Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2011 Westminster Hall

[Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

My hon. Friend makes a strong case. Does he agree that there is a danger that people in a host of vulnerable groups, including those with mental health problems, those suffering domestic abuse—as opposed to domestic violence—those with learning disabilities, and others, could be disadvantaged in front of the law? Would it not be better to raise the bar for legal aid, and look at the situation case by case?

[Dr Huppert]

My hon. Friend raises a number of issues, some of which I will come on to talk about. There is no doubt that this issue is a challenge, and there is no easy solution with which to protect all those vulnerable groups. Ideas such as that mentioned by my hon. Friend, or those suggested by the Law Society, may provide a better option.

Care Proceedings

Annette Brooke Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2011 Ministerial Corrections

[Annette Brooke]

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many care proceedings cases in each local authority area are currently open in the family courts; how many were open in each of the last five years; and how many have reached a conclusion (a) in 2010 to date and (b) each of the last five years.

[Official Report, 3 June 2010, Vol. 510, c. 55-59W.]

Letter of correction from Mr Jonathan Djanogly:

An error has been identified in the written answer given to the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) on 3 June 2010. The December 2008 figures in Table 1 of the response in relation to care supervision orders outstanding in the Family Proceedings Courts (FPCs) are incorrect.

The full answer given was as follows:

[Mr Djanogly]

Table 1 shows the number of care and supervision cases outstanding as at the end of December in each year from 2005 to 2009 in the Family Proceedings Courts and County Courts of England and Wales. Data are presented by HM Courts Service areas as a local authority area breakdown is not collected centrally and could be obtained only through the inspection of individual case files at disproportionate cost.

Child Slavery

Annette Brooke Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2011 Westminster Hall

[Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hood. I congratulate the hon. Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson) on a moving speech—perhaps the most moving that I have ever heard in this Chamber. I think we all share an abhorrence of child slavery.

I, too, started by reading the Save the Children report “The Small Hands of Slavery”—it is an emotive title—and came across the disturbing statistics involving such large numbers. That was back in 2007. What progress are we making? As the hon. Gentleman said, the report states that 8.4 million children are trapped in the worst forms of illegal, degrading and dangerous work. It also identified the eight most prevalent forms of child slavery: child trafficking, commercial sexual exploitation, bonded child labour, forced work in mines, forced agricultural labour, child soldiers and combatants, forced child marriage and domestic slavery.

The hon. Gentleman provided many tragic examples from around the globe. It is, of course, a tragedy that there is such a variety. Our children are our most precious asset, and it brings tears to the eyes to think of children suffering in such ways. More recently, Save the Children published the report “Children on the Move”. We must remember that in high-profile conflict situations, such as in the middle east, children are particularly vulnerable to certain practices.

There is so much to be done. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we must consider the problem from the UK’s perspective, looking outwards as well as inwards and across Departments. Clearly, in order to tackle it, we need national, international and strong local action. We need to consider poverty reduction. This Government’s commitment to increasing the proportion of GDP spent on aid must be welcome, as it is well targeted to reduce poverty. We need education, legislation—legislation must be appropriate, but it is also important that it is put into practice—and resources for prevention and rehabilitation. Those principles can easily be applied to tackling problems in the UK. In my brief contribution, I will concentrate on trafficking, but I recognise fully the scale of the issue.

Research by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre discovered that at least 287 children in this country were identified as potential victims of trafficking between March 2009 and February 2010. More than one third were brought to Britain for the sex trade. Amazingly, 18% were made to cultivate cannabis. I must admit that I have learned a great deal from reading ECPAT UK’s representations about the use of child labour in cannabis cultivation in this country. It makes us realise that we can tackle such issues. It must be possible to track them down and take suitable action.

[Dr McCrea]

Has the hon. Lady seen the CEOP study on strategic threat assessment? It states:

“There are only a handful of UK police forces which have units designated and trained in running investigations into trafficking.”

Does she believe that more should be done initially to change that?

[Annette Brooke]

I certainly believe that more must be done on a range of issues. I will address the hon. Gentleman’s point shortly.

Sadly, many of the victims identified go missing again and are obviously re-trafficked. We must bear that in mind. We need, of course, to think about what is happening in the countries sending these people. We need international co-operation.

It is interesting that, under the Labour Government, we finally signed up to the Council of Europe convention on action against trafficking in human beings, which came into force in April 2009. There had been questions over a long period from both sides of the House about when we were going to ratify the convention, but we did do so.

I hope that we will have some better news about the EU directive on human trafficking, which the European Parliament approved in 2010. So far, the Government have decided not to opt into it, which I find really difficult to understand. The UK and Denmark are the only EU states not to have opted in, even though we are told that everything we do complies. As I understand it, the directive improves existing EU legislation and provides better protection for trafficking victims, more rigorous protection measures and tougher penalties for traffickers. Signing up to the directive would make a clear statement about our Government’s support for trafficked women and Ministers’ willingness to provide protection and secure convictions.

An organisation called Care claims that this country is not really doing everything it could and that it is not doing everything in the directive. It says that forced begging is also trafficking. It says that we cannot prosecute crimes outside Britain. It says that Britain fails to provide universal access to safe accommodation and medical treatment for victims, fails to investigate cases after a victim withdraws a statement and does not always offer proper protection of victims in criminal proceedings. Those are all things that I believe we should be able to do.

As I understand it, the directive has a specific focus on child victims, so it is very relevant. It provides them with greater care and protection. It also directly calls for the UK to introduce a system of guardianship for trafficked children. I wonder whether that is the problem preventing us from signing up to the directive. Again, I want to be fair to both Governments. I have long argued for a system of guardianship for children who are unaccompanied asylum seekers, and I have tabled many amendments in Committees dealing with Bills on children, always to be defeated. We should not see this as a political issue, because we all need to work together.

[Mr Dodds]

On the EU trafficking directive, I agree entirely with the hon. Lady. However, given that we should all be working together and erring on the side of the caution in the protection of children and vulnerable people, does she understand the irony that even Eurosceptics—I include myself among them—have no problem with the Government opting in on this issue, although, of course, they opt in on a whole lot of other issues with which we do have problems? On this issue, however, there is a bit of agreement, so why not err on the side of caution, even if the Government are saying that they are doing these things already?

[Annette Brooke]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his contribution. He makes a valid point. It is a strength of the EU that we can have co-operation over a large number of countries when crimes are being committed that are clearly not retained within the boundaries of an individual nation.

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on her excellent speech. Although the Government claim we are meeting all the requirements, what message does it send to those looking at countries to target if we do not sign up?

[Annette Brooke]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that question, but I think he has answered himself. What he says is very true. The main thing is that we must be seen to be fighting this problem on all fronts, but there is a feeling that we are not.

I would be really interested to know whether guardianship is the issue that is holding us back from signing the directive. I strongly believe in the advantages of someone taking parental responsibility, and that has been alluded to. In a recent answer to a parliamentary question, the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), said that responsibility for child trafficking victims lies with local authorities, but that can co-exist with parental responsibility. When it comes to children in care, for example, we are aware that we have not done enough about the concept of corporate responsibility. We are talking here about children who have been through so much, and it is not a big ask to ensure that there will be not only some corporate body, but an individual to whom children can relate and from whom they can get support.

At present, a number of organisations are being closed. That is a concern in itself, but I hope that the Minister can reassure us, perhaps by setting out an alternative way of doing things. I am by no means arguing that we must carry on doing things in exactly the same way as we have in the past, and I would very much welcome a brand new approach, but I just have to raise concerns. The Gangmasters Licensing Authority faces closure. We no longer have the Metropolitan police’s human trafficking unit and Operation Golf, which were particularly focused on child trafficking. The UK Human Trafficking Centre has been absorbed into another organisation. We are not clear whether all the POPPY project’s funding will be protected. CEOP itself will be absorbed into another organisation. That need not all be negative news—perhaps the news about the POPPY project is—if the Minister can assure us that we will do things better. In addition to those cuts, the voluntary sector, like all of us, is facing cuts, but the problem we are talking about needs resources as a matter of priority. The hon. Member for Upper Bann has shown us that it should be a high priority.

The key issues for me include preventing these problems in the first place. That has to involve working on a wider international scale. Another key issue is identification, which this country is not very good at. We do not really know how many sex workers or child victims there are in this country; we come up with numbers, but they are probably just the tip of iceberg. How can we have the right priorities and the right policies unless we have the knowledge? I hope that identification and raising awareness will be given priority in the national strategy on trafficking, which is due to be announced.

Local strategies are important, and I would like to be reassured about how they will be worked through. Our local safeguarding children boards have a lot to do on identification, raising awareness and making sure that the right services are developed and supplied locally. We all need to be aware of the dreadful issues around us.

Whether a person is under 18 is still a big issue. Representations have long been made to me to the effect that the immigration age assessment dispute process is often used to divert young people into the immigration system, rather than to protect them. Obviously, it is very difficult to determine the age of a child. We must have effective intervention, and I am sure that we can do so much more on that. We must have safe and appropriate accommodation, so that once children are rescued, they stay rescued.

We need better evidence. We need all agencies to share information and to work together. We need better prosecution procedures. We need to support victims so that they give evidence. I am a little concerned about the period of reflection allowed by the UK Border Agency. The time for deciding whether a person is trafficked is to be reduced from 45 to 30 days. In Italy, it is six months, which I have always felt gives people—particularly young women—time to build up their strength and the courage to bear witness against the perpetrators. It is very difficult for someone who has just been pulled away from a horrific situation to give evidence at that time.

We have been around the globe in the debate and finally I want to stop off in Dorset. I commend the work of Poole Soroptimists, who have done a great deal to highlight trafficking, through supporting the purple teardrop campaign. I went to a very well attended meeting in Dorset organised by the Soroptimists, and people there were deeply shocked. In Dorset we do not necessarily think that we have trafficked children in our midst; but we do—and we do all over the country. That is why awareness-raising is so important for me.

It is also important that there should be specialist police units. As with most areas, cutbacks in the number of police in Dorset are proposed. It has been suggested to me, although I have not had it confirmed, that one thing that might disappear is specialist police work on trafficking. That would be very sad, particularly in the light of my final point: we are all looking forward to the Olympic games, but we must fear what might happen in our country at that time. The evidence is that a major international sporting event causes an increase in sex exploitation, forced child begging and child labour. We are blessed to have the water sports in Dorset, but we are concerned that there should be adequate policing. Because we are a safe part of the country we naturally do not have the highest level of police funding, but we shall need adequate policing in the light of the issues associated with the Olympic games.

Like the hon. Member for Upper Bann I can say only that the problem is so serious that we would be very remiss as politicians if we were not to commit to work together and do our very best for children in such incredibly awful situations as he described.

Legal Aid Reform

Annette Brooke Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Tom Brake]

I hope that the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), is listening carefully and that there might be some adjustments to what is being proposed. We need to hear solutions, however. We do not need to hear a list of concerns without it being followed by solutions. We all face this problem.

I want to use this debate as an opportunity to raise a couple of specific points, about which I have written to the Minister. I thank him for meeting me, Steve Triner and other representatives of my local citizens advice bureau to discuss their concerns about the proposals. I have also recently had meetings with three solicitors in my constituency office. Like other Members on both sides of the House, I too have received a wide range of briefings from various organisations. I received a briefing yesterday from the Equal Rights Trust, and I want to raise a specific point in that regard. I hope that the Minister will be aware of the points that have been raised with me, as I have already written to him about them.

The first point relates to medical negligence. There is concern about the impact that the changes could have, and whether particularly difficult and complicated medical cases for which the NHS would previously have taken responsibility might be passed over to social services, resulting in their having to take on the financial costs of, for example, the most serious obstetric mistakes involving brain damage in very young children. That is a very specific issue, and I hope that the Minister will be able to respond to it.

My second point relates to family law. Interestingly, in my meeting with the solicitors, they were not particularly concerned about the idea of a telephone helpline. They were, however, concerned about what would happen beyond that stage, in regard to referrals. They wondered whether there would be a means of identifying at the beginning of the process that someone could not be dealt with by telephone and that a face-to-face meeting would be required.

[Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that people with mental health issues might not get equal access to justice when they are involved in family disputes?

[Tom Brake]

My hon. Friend makes a strong point, and I hope that Ministers will listen to such points in the debate and during the wider consultation.

In family law, people are rightly encouraged to pursue mediation in cases that are currently supported through legal aid. During the meeting, the point was made to me that Government bodies and associated organisations are often unwilling to pursue a route that involves mediation. Government Departments and associated bodies will be required to show a willingness to engage in mediation, if that is now the direction the Government are moving in.

I have already made a couple of points about telephone advice, but there are also concerns about whether any local knowledge will be embedded in any telephone advisory service, and about conflicts of interest that might arise as a result of that, particularly if there are a limited number of suppliers to whom a case can be referred.

During the meeting, CAB representatives expressed the concern that they would now be in the position of having to take up very personal cases, and therefore be very much in the front line rather than acting as an independent body, so they might end up having to represent a particular individual against the other party in the case. They are worried about how that would impact on their independence. They are also worried that a lot of court time would be lost, particularly if more people ended up representing themselves. There is a good job to be done in making that process clearer and simpler, so that if more people do represent themselves there is less risk that they fail to turn up with the right papers or on time.