Sentencing Reform/Legal Aid

Elizabeth Truss Excerpts

Tuesday 21st June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

I have already stated that I am not in a position today to say what we can do to support citizens advice bureaux and similar organisations providing advice in the legal field and other areas such as welfare. The Government are actively considering that, and I hope we will be in a position to make an announcement soon. Part of the problem is relevant to my field, but it extends into other areas such as welfare reform. The Government are conscious of the fact that we must do something to fill some of the unavoidable gaps that have been left at present, mainly by local authorities being forced to cut the grants they can give.

[Elizabeth Truss (South West Norfolk) (Con)]

This Government inherited the most expensive criminal justice system per capita in the world. As £100 million is being spent on administering legal aid through the Legal Services Commission, and as there are three different departments of the National Offender Management Service all doing separate kinds of commissioning—not to mention the extremely high cost per prison place—may I suggest that there are many areas where savings can be found without cutting front-line services?

[Mr Clarke]

We are abolishing the Legal Services Commission. One of the most frequent complaints that I get about the system is the sheer bureaucracy, and it has had serious problems in the past. The Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), tells me that we will save £8 million a year simply by bringing this in-house, as we are doing, but we intend to save quite a lot more on the administration of the system than that. It is hopeless, given our prime duty of protecting the public, if we waste money in that area and make it one of the most expensive and fast-growing areas of Government expenditure. We hope to make the system effective and targeted, and for it to do what we should be doing, which is protecting the public from crime and giving access to justice to the vulnerable.