Legal Aid Reform

Elfyn Llwyd Excerpts

Thursday 27th June 2013 Commons Chamber

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

May I first of all declare an interest? For many years, I practised family and criminal law, both as a solicitor and barrister, and many of the cases were legally aided.

The effects of these reforms will be extremely detrimental to solicitors and their practices. Inevitably we will have advice deserts and this will impinge even more on the situation in Wales, where there is a requirement to provide services through the medium of Welsh. The Justice Secretary, sadly absent, has admitted that the Ministry only considered this factor a month into its consultation and his impact assessment does not even mention the Welsh language.

The consultation process in general so far has been nothing short of a sham allowing professionals only six weeks to get up to speed with proposals that will fragment the professional world they inhabit. To add insult to injury, the Government intend to introduce these reforms by secondary legislation without proper scrutiny by Parliament. This is scandalous. Unless these plans are stopped now and quickly, there will be no turning back.

[Mr Lammy]

I was in Wales at the weekend and was struck by the major rurality issues in that part of the UK. Is the right hon. Gentleman concerned that the loss of high street lawyers in rural areas could damage access to justice?

[Mr Llwyd]

Undoubtedly so and, as one who used to practise in a small town, I speak with a little authority. The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right.

[Sir Edward Garnier]

It goes further than the point made by the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy). It goes to the Bar as well, as the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd) and I know. If the good barristers leave because they cannot afford to remain within the criminal legal aid system, we will not get the silks and we will not get the circuit judges and Crown court judges. In that way, we will see a diminution in the quality of justice that we all expect to receive.

[Mr Llwyd]

The hon. and learned Gentleman is absolutely right and I could not have put it any better.

One of the most contentious aspects of these so-called reforms is the removal of the client’s right to choose. Instead people will be allocated a provider, regardless of the complexities of the case or whether they have any particular needs or vulnerabilities.

[Caroline Lucas]

The right hon. Gentleman will know that the clause in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 that guaranteed the right of the individual to choose was deemed to be incredibly important and now is being completely ignored. Does he agree that there is a very real risk that the public simply will not have confidence in a system where the defendant’s lawyer is chosen by the very state seeking to convict them?

[Mr Llwyd]

That is a very important point, because it was considered vital in the civil context and yet curiously not even regarded as being of passing interest in the criminal context, where people risk their livelihood, liberty and everything else.

Comments made recently by the Justice Secretary in the Law Society Gazette make one rather suspicious that there is something ideological in the calculated removal of choice. He said that he does not believe

“that most people who find themselves in our criminal justice system are great connoisseurs of legal skills”

or to paraphrase—as we have heard—they are “too thick to pick”. These condescending comments display a sinister lack of compassion for the vulnerable in society and a cavalier disregard for these individuals’ best interests.

Denying an individual the right to choose their legal representation is arguably in breach of the European convention on human rights, article 6 of which sets out specific rights for criminal defendants including that they should be informed of the offence they are accused of in a language they can understand.

A loss of expertise will also follow, unfortunately; the point made by the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Sir E. Garnier). It will deprive the legal system of practitioners, firms, solicitors and counsel with specialist knowledge of particular cases and areas of law. In the event of price-competitive tendering being introduced to the so-called market, the quality of service will be considered at only a preliminary stage of the process. The final stage of bids will be determined on price considerations only. Even at the starting price, following three previous cuts to legal aid fees over the last eight years, the Government have specified that bids must be at least 17.5% lower than the current rates.

The first casualty of this race to the bottom will be the quality of service. Astonishingly, as has been said, providers will be paid the same unit price for preparing each case regardless of the offence and regardless of a push for either a guilty plea or trial. This presents a conflict of interest, but the Justice Secretary has said that he is sure the professionals can be relied on to act in the best interest of the client—but the professionals will no longer be around; that is the point. They will have been priced out of the market altogether.

The proposals provide that daily payments to solicitors, for example, will be reduced after a second day. There are many reasons for delays in court—interpreters not turning up, people speaking the wrong language, change of court date at the last minute, Crown Prosecution Service witnesses and so forth—but the individual lawyers are now apparently to be penalised. With 400 remaining providers, advice deserts will develop in rural areas.

At present, there are 249 law firms in Wales undertaking some form of criminal work. Under these proposals, only 21 contracts will be awarded to provide legal aid criminal services in Wales. Providers will be expected to service work across large distances without any additional payment for travel costs. There will be no guarantee of work after the initial three-year contracts have come to an end. It is difficult to imagine small local firms being able to survive. With them will go knowledge of the local area, local police, courts and agencies and local access to justice. Instead, we shall have Eddie Stobart, Tesco, G4S, the Co-op and so forth. There is even talk of call centres. The prospect of tendering cases out to “Stobart Law” or “Tesco Law” fills me with absolute dread. It will mean an attack on the criminal Bar and will make a cataclysmic impact on the future of our criminal judiciary.

These proposals will, I am afraid, seriously undermine the rule of law. Why is it, then, that the Council of Circuit Judges vehemently opposes these plans? Why is the Judicial Executive Board similarly opposed? Why is Lord Neuberger, until recently the President of the Supreme Court, vehemently opposed? Why? It is because they are right. The Justice Secretary—a non-lawyer—knows better than the finest legal brains in the British Isles. It is time to reconsider, and if this consultation is not to be a sham, the Government must reconsider.