Business of the House

Chuka Umunna Excerpts

Thursday 16th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

As my hon. Friend said, there was a well-attended debate on legal aid in Westminster Hall earlier this week. Any change to legal aid will require legislation of course, and I anticipate that there will be a Bill on that this Session. Our proposals represent a radical, wide-ranging and ambitious programme of reform that reflects our commitment to ensuring that legal aid is available to those who need it most. We estimate that it will deliver savings of about £350 million by 2014-15, but the exact figure will be subject to what final package of proposals we decide to implement following the consultation to which my hon. Friend referred.

[Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

To return to an issue I raised at a previous business questions, the Government have announced that they will change the way in which the police’s use of stop-and-search and stop-and-account powers are recorded, and I think that change will make it impossible to check properly whether their use is proportionate and non-discriminatory. In a Westminster Hall debate on 1 December, the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice said this change would save 450,000 hours of police time, but that figure is strongly disputed by the StopWatch action group and others. May we have a debate to discuss the reality of the situation?

[Sir George Young]

It is important that we seek a consensus on what the impact of the changes will be. I cannot promise an early debate, but a meeting between the relevant Home Office Minister and the organisation to which the hon. Gentleman refers might represent the right way forward.