Public Legal Education

Dan Poulter Excerpts

Tuesday 15th May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Joanna Cherry]

As I was saying, public legal education in Scotland begins at an early stage. Human rights is part of the curriculum for excellence that is taught in Scottish schools, and it is a core element of the health and wellbeing module of that curriculum. Schools in Scotland work in collaboration with organisations such as Amnesty International to deliver the human rights element of the curriculum.

I am a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which is carrying out an inquiry into the enforcement of human rights and attitudes towards them. Last week, we heard evidence from a number of witnesses who said that there is a demonstrably different discourse about human rights in Scotland. They put that down to the teaching of human rights in Scottish schools, as well as to media in Scotland, which are less hostile to the concept of human rights.

Good human rights practice in Scotland flows from that less hostile environment towards human rights. The witnesses giving evidence to our Joint Committee last week gave as an example of that the embedding of human rights in the new Social Security (Scotland) Bill, which I am proud was introduced by my good friend and colleague Jeane Freeman, the Minister for Social Security in Scotland.

The witnesses also spoke of the wonderful work done by the Scottish Youth Parliament on legal education and rights. The Scottish Youth Parliament is a grassroots project—run in conjunction with the Scottish Parliament—that does a lot of good work in the area of human rights principles and children’s rights.

I am sure that other hon. Members present will, like me, have in their constituencies schools that are part of the UNICEF Rights Respecting Schools project. I am advised that 1.5 million children across the United Kingdom go to a rights respecting school. I am proud that I have worked with two schools in my constituency, Redhall School and Oxgangs Primary School, on rights respecting. The children were particularly interested in the importance of respecting the rights of child refugees.

Why teach human rights, and indeed legal education, in school? Scotland’s curriculum for excellence aims to enable students to become responsible citizens. As other hon. Members have said, learning about the law, rights, respect for others, and a commitment to participate in all aspects of public life helps children to grow up and aspire to be good citizens.

Students across Scotland, particularly law students, are involved in the delivery of public legal education through the Scottish Universities Law Clinic network. A number of universities in Scotland run free legal advice clinics for members of the public.

[Dr Dan Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

The hon. and learned Lady is making some good points. She is absolutely right that a lot of law students can give their free time to such projects, but is there not a real problem in that some of the bigger law firms do not sign up to pro bono work and do not free up their solicitors to spend time in schools or to do other important pro bono work? What are her thoughts on dealing with that?

[Joanna Cherry]

I very much encourage those who have benefited from a free legal education in Scotland and beyond, and who are now doing well out of being lawyers, to engage in pro bono work. I am proud that the Faculty of Advocates and the Law Society of Scotland do that and encourage firms and individual advocates in Scotland to do it too. I will return to that in a moment.

The Edinburgh Napier law clinic is in my constituency. Edinburgh Napier University is a relatively recent deliverer of legal education in Scotland, but I am proud to say that staff and students have set up a voluntary clinic to provide free legal advice and assistance. We have a considerably more generous legal aid scheme in Scotland than in England and Wales, but nevertheless people fall through the cracks, and they can benefit from law clinics such as the one established by Edinburgh Napier University. One of the clinic’s main objectives is to broaden the concept of access to justice, and that is really what this debate is about, at least in part. Public legal education is about educating people and giving them access to justice.

I am also proud that Edinburgh University, which is not in my constituency but is my alma mater, has a free legal advice clinic, as does Glasgow Caledonian University, the University of Strathclyde, Aberdeen University, Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen and the University of the West of Scotland. Those law clinics are thriving. Many MPs and Members of the Scottish Parliament refer their constituents to them from time to time.

The Faculty of Advocates, which is the Scottish Bar, of which I am a member, also runs a law clinic or a free legal services unit, which is part of its commitment to promote access to justice. That means that members of the public can be referred through certain organisations, such as citizens advice bureaux, to get free advice and representation from practising advocates in Scotland.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Solicitor General]

I am always interested in the hon. and learned Lady’s observations, but I am not sure whether 70% coverage is the right balance. I will consider with interest what she has said and study the issue more carefully, rather than making remarks that are not based on a full study of the evidence. I will, however, concede the point that public legal education is not some substitute or easy fix for eligibility for legal aid. It is a much more long-term approach, which focuses naturally on children and young people and is designed, above all, to give people the knowledge and the wherewithal to avoid the pitfalls of litigation and court proceedings in the first place. We have a very different aim in mind when it comes to spreading the provision of PLE. I pay tribute to all the organisations in Scotland that do so much work, the law clinics in particular, which the hon. and learned Lady mentioned—we have those in great measure too south of the border.

It is not just motherhood and apple pie; there is a statutory underpinning to public legal education in the Legal Services Act 2007 which, among its regulatory objectives refers to

“increasing public understanding of the citizen’s legal rights and duties”

and

“improving access to justice”.

It is not an option for the Government, or indeed any of the regulatory bodies, to neglect those objectives. I am glad that the Law Society, the General Council of the Bar and the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives here in England and Wales play their part in ensuring that PLE is spread as far and wide as possible within the professions. Both the Attorney General and I, as the pro bono champions of the Government, work closely with those involved in PLE and support initiatives to increase its profile and reach more members of the public.

[Dr Poulter]

I come back to my earlier intervention, and put the same question to my hon. and learned Friend. There is a challenge, despite the best efforts of the Law Society and the Bar Council in encouraging pro bono work, as some of the big law firms, which are all about billable hours, do not free up enough of their solicitors to do important pro bono work. What does my hon. and learned Friend think the Government or the Law Society could do to encourage a more responsible approach from some of those firms?

[The Solicitor General]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. For those of us who were in the full throes of private practice, very often the delivery of PLE was a better use of our time than our having to immerse ourselves in often very unfamiliar areas of law, with all the concomitant risks. My message to the big firms is: where there is an issue about availability, allow members of the team to go into schools first thing in the morning. I have seen that in several state schools in London. I have joined employed barristers and solicitors helping to deliver citizenship foundation courses, for example in social media law. To see the engagement and sense of ownership that young people have when talking about issues so close to their everyday lives—when they suddenly understand that law is not some remote, dusty concept, but reaches into their existence and everyday experience—is quite a sight to behold.

I want to outline and underline the work that we are doing with the public legal education panel, which has been formed from leading organisations in the field to promote the importance of that work. It was convened by me last year. It involves the professions and organisations such as the Citizenship Foundation and Law for Life. We are bringing together organisations in a joined-up way to help work out where the need is and what the provision is currently. I have two sub-groups working on those issues.

There are two types of PLE. “Just in case” PLE is all about ensuring that people have skills, information and knowledge about their rights. “Just in time” PLE is all about giving people knowledge and support when a legal issue happens to arise. Both types of provision are equally important, and we are working our way towards getting a better understanding.

Through organisations and such events as National Pro Bono Week, I can champion the importance of PLE through the community, whether it is delivered in schools, to people who are homeless or those in prison, who really need to understand their rights and, most importantly, their responsibilities. Last year during Pro Bono Week, I took part in a session on social media and the law being delivered by university students to local secondary school pupils in Chester. It gave young people a chance to learn about their rights and the surrounding law. One issue that arose was the increasing problem in schools of young people taking videos of fights and other incidents in the playground. The session was about understanding what the sharing of those videos meant for privacy, the rights of the individuals involved and the problems that we are all familiar with here, but which all too often young people sadly only learn about to their expense after the event. I was proud of and impressed by the commitment of the university students delivering the sessions. That has been backed up in recent months by my experience at the Kent law clinic at the University of Kent in Canterbury. Law students there are not only delivering support and advice to members of the public; they are also helping to spread public legal education more widely.

We have some shining examples of the work that is going on, and I pray in aid the work of His Honour Judge Wildblood, QC at the Bristol family court. He is allowing his court to be used for public debates about the law. He is even using local drama groups to help to educate young people. He is bringing together the legal community in Bristol and the surrounding area in a most effective way. With that sort of leadership, many great things can be achieved but here, Mr Streeter, is where you and other colleagues come into play. As has been said by many Members, including my hon. Friends the Members for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes) and for Redditch (Rachel Maclean), there are opportunities for colleagues to take a lead in their local communities and work with local firms of solicitors or legal practitioners to help to deliver public legal education in our schools.

Assisted Suicide

Dan Poulter Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for calling me to speak in this very important debate. It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Alun Michael). We do not always agree, but I agreed with every word that he said on this occasion. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Richard Ottaway) on the tone that he adopted: I thought it just right for the introduction of such an important debate.

I should declare an interest. I am a member of the board of Living and Dying Well, an organisation that commissions evidence-based research into end-of-life care. I have regular conversations with Lord Carlile, who chairs it, and with Baroness Finlay, who has already been mentioned today.

I too have received several letters from members of Dignity in Dying. I write back disagreeing, but I always do so with a great deal of respect, because—like other Members who have spoken—I think that opinions on both sides of the debate are motivated by compassion, and I do not think it right to be critical of those who take a different view if compassion is what motivates them.

I am rather concerned about some of the media coverage that appeared before today’s debate, which seemed to suggest that we were contemplating, and perhaps moving towards, a change in the law. That is not the case. All that we are discussing today is a reaffirmation of the current position in law, which is why I am happy to support the motion.

I am probably unusual here in having had an interest in assisted suicide for as long as it has been an offence. I was 17 in 1961, and an active member of my young farmers club. As young farmers clubs do, we discussed the issues of the day in debating competitions, and I supported the decriminalisation of suicide. A key point, however, is that that simply would not have happened without the inclusion in the Suicide Act 1961 of section 2, which introduced the offence of assisting a suicide and was seen as an absolute protection allowing the offence of suicide itself to be abolished.

My view remains exactly the same today. Over the last few days I have received many representations and briefings, as have many other Members, and over the months during which I have been a member of Living and Dying Well, we have commissioned several research papers. There so much information that it is almost impossible to engage one’s mind clearly with all of it, and because the time limit on speeches today is so tight, I shall make just one fundamental point.

In 1961, I just knew that assisted suicide was wrong. I thought that it was extremely dangerous, and I still think that. If the DPP’s guidance became statutory we would be legalising assisted suicide, and I believe that that would have a very negative impact on the frail elderly, the terminally ill, the incapacitated and the seriously depressed.

I have never believed that the malicious assister is the biggest problem, although that is probably an issue. What has always concerned me is the likelihood that the normalisation of assisted suicide would lead to uncertainty about their own worth among the groups whom I have listed. It would cause them to ask questions about their own value. They would see themselves as becoming a burden on society. When we talk to elderly people who are nearing the end of their lives, we often find that they are concerned about not being able to leave assets to their grandchildren, and I believe that that concern would be expanded greatly if assisted suicide were legalised and normalised. My view is that it was and is wrong, and that only in very special circumstances should it not be prosecuted.

[Dr Daniel Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

I think that there is a clear distinction between allowing discretion for a prosecution that says “It is wrong to assist someone in committing suicide,” and potentially widening the number of people who may be put under pressure by codifying assisted suicide in any form in law.

[Glyn Davies]

I firmly believe that assisting in suicide is wrong and should be a criminal offence, but, as with all criminal offences, the DPP or the prosecution service must always have the discretion to apply a degree of common sense and make judgments about what motivated the person concerned to commit that criminal offence. Since the guidelines were issued two years ago, the DPP has made a sensible judgment in every case. Where he has been satisfied that the crime was motivated by compassion, no prosecution has taken place.

The system is working well. It is delivering exactly what we want in law; it supports what this Parliament has judged we should have in law. If we were to put things on a statutory basis, we would damage the current law, which is working so well, and it would result in pressure being put on some of the most vulnerable people in society, which would be plain wrong.

Finally, I want to say something about palliative care. For decades, all Governments have spent a huge amount of money on extending life and curing disease. We have not spent nearly enough time ensuring that that extended life is a life of quality.