Oral Answers to Questions

Elfyn Llwyd Excerpts

Wednesday 9th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend has made an important point. Let us look at what has been happening in Britain this week. The IMF has said that the UK will grow faster than any other G7 country, new jobs are being created at Asda in Birmingham and at Vodafone, and there are the extra apprenticeships in east Lancashire that my hon. Friend mentioned. The trade deficit is falling, and employment is rising. Britain is on its way back.

[Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

During the Committee stage of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), assured the Committee that those who were refused legal aid could still apply under the new exceptional funding scheme, and described that as “a vital safeguard”. Between April and December 2013, 617 family law applications were made and eight were allowed. What kind of safeguard is that?

[The Prime Minister]

I will look very closely at the cases that the right hon. Gentleman has raised, but the key point is that we must ensure that our legal aid system is affordable. When we compare our system with those of similar common-law countries, we see that we are still spending far more per head than, for instance, Australia and New Zealand. The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but it is no good for Members of Parliament to come to Parliament every week and vote against every single spending decision, while not recognising that we must get our deficit down in order to help our economy to recover.