Oral Answers to Questions

Catherine McKinnell Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

Cornwall is a sparsely populated area and there are difficulties there, but there is always access to the telephone service. It is right that we should look not only at face-to-face advice but at where technology can help to deliver legal advice to people.

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

24. The United Nations special rapporteur’s recent findings were shameful and damning. They highlighted the fact that the “dramatic reductions” in the availability of legal aid since 2012 have“overwhelmingly affected the poor and people with disabilities, many of whom cannot otherwise afford to challenge benefit denials or reductions and are thus effectively deprived of their human right to a remedy.” When will the Government accept responsibility for the most vulnerable in our community, and will the Minister commit to ensuring that the overdue review of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 will reinstate legal aid for early legal advice?

[Lucy Frazer]

The hon. Lady makes an important point about ensuring that we have support for those who are most vulnerable, but I would like to make two points on welfare benefits, which she has highlighted. First, the most important outcome for benefit claimants is that the decisions on their claims should be right first time. This avoids the need to go to court at all, and my Department is working closely with the Department for Work and Pensions to ensure efficient decision making. I have met the Minister twice to ensure that we get those decisions right first time. Secondly, while decisions on welfare claims significantly impact the lives of often vulnerable people, the claims are often not complicated. We are making changes to the tribunal system to ensure that those cases are handled simply, effectively and more quickly.