Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Morgan of Cotes Excerpts

Tuesday 15th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Blunt]

We are about to come forward with a credible offender learning strategy. The budget will remain very much the same as that which we inherited, because we realise that that strategy is a priority. Unfortunately, a significant amount of the money spent under the previous Administration went to waste. If the hon. Lady reads the reports from independent monitoring boards, she will see repeated complaints about the quality of offender learning in prisons under the previous Administration. We will put that right.

[Nicky Morgan (Loughborough) (Con)]

7. What plans he has for the size of his Department’s budget for civil legal aid.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Jonathan Djanogly)]

We published impact assessments alongside our reform proposals setting out their potential financial implications. We estimated that the savings to civil legal aid would be around £255 million by 2014-15. Total civil legal aid expenditure was around £900 million in 2008-09.

[Nicky Morgan (Loughborough) (Con)]

We all appreciate the need to make savings, but citizens advice bureaux, including the Charnwood CAB in my constituency, play an important role—hon. Members on both sides of the House have drawn attention to their CABs. Mention has been made of the difference between legal and general help. May I suggest that the Minister consider, with the Department for Work and Pensions, simplifying the length of the forms that people need to fill in? The CAB currently helps benefits claimants who sometimes have to fill in forms of up to 52 pages in length.

[Mr Djanogly]

Yes, I can confirm to my hon. Friend that we are in discussions with the Department for Work and Pensions on exactly that matter, and more generally on improving early intervention, so that preferably people will not need to go to a tribunal at all.