Legal Aid: Birmingham Pub Bombings

Debate between Ian Paisley and Richard Burden

Tuesday 27th March 2018 Westminster Hall

[Richard Burden]

The right hon. Lady is absolutely right. The early-day motion tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley—I am pleased to welcome her to the debate—is getting wide support across the House, irrespective of party. This is not a party matter; it is a matter of justice and parity. As the right hon. Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman) said, the fact that the coroner supports public funding being made available for the families of the pub bombing victims underlines that he understands that this is a question of justice. We are asking for Ministers to have that same level of understanding.

The Legal Aid Agency is insisting that existing regulations prevent it from providing assistance, even though the families were eventually granted legal aid for the inquest. One reason the LAA put forward is that the families should instruct lawyers on a no-win, no-fee basis. That argument is undermined by the fact that a protective costs order was already accepted by the High Court and would quite possibly be accepted by the Court of Appeal. The avenue of getting representation on a no-win, no-fee basis is simply unlikely to be available to the families.

However, it seems that the Legal Aid Agency’s main reason for refusing legal aid this time is because the collective capital of the families provides

“potential source of funding from which it would be reasonable to fund the case”.

Indeed, in a letter to one of the law firms representing the families, the Legal Aid Agency went so far as to suggest that the possibility of further crowdfunding appeal could suggest that the families do not need legal aid to present their case. I find that suggestion astonishing. It is in the public interest for this case to be heard; it should not be dependent on how successful the families are in passing the hat around. The bottom line, however, is that in a letter to me and other Birmingham Members, the Legal Aid Agency insists that it has no discretion to come to any decision other than to refuse legal aid.

From my reading of the rules governing legal aid, I do not know whether the Legal Aid Agency has no discretion here. It is not clear how the refusal of legal aid for the Court of Appeal hearing logically squares with the fact that families finally won legal aid for their representation at the inquest. As inconsistent as it may appear, if for whatever reason there is no discretion by which the families can be granted legal aid, my request to the Minister is for the Government to step up to the plate for justice by directly authorising that public funding be made available outside the regular legal aid framework.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for the way in which he introduced the debate. He is right that this is a cross-party, cross-nation issue. One of the premises of British law is that justice must be seen to be done. Is he as perplexed as I am by what has happened in this case? The British public are aghast, wondering why other groups and individuals appear to find it so easy to get legal aid, while a group of victims who have gone through the wringer for many decades cannot access justice, and are therefore having justice denied them.

[Richard Burden]

The hon. Gentleman is right that people in Birmingham, and people throughout the west midlands and beyond, are looking at this situation and saying: “If it is the public interest for the case to be tested at the Court of Appeal, how can it be that only one side is being funded to do so?” I am not sure that I agree with him that it is easy for a lot of other people to get legal aid. In fact, the changes to the legal aid system have been a concern for a wide range of people seeking public support in their quests for justice. Certainly in this case, however, it is astonishing that legal aid has been denied.

Ministers know that public funding has sometimes been made available outside the legal aid system. It was rightly made available for the Hillsborough inquests, when legal aid was not available. I therefore ask the Minister: does she agree with the Legal Aid Agency’s contention that it has no discretion at all to grant legal aid for the appeal court hearing? If she does not agree, will she put the Legal Aid Agency right? If she agrees with the Legal Aid Agency, does she also agree with my contention that it is in the public interest for both the coroner and the families to have equal resources to test their cases at the Court of Appeal, and that the Government should therefore make available the public resources to achieve that objective outside the regular legal aid framework?

Beyond the specifics of this case, I refer the Minister to what the then Minister, the right hon. and learned Member for North East Hertfordshire (Sir Oliver Heald), said in response to the Adjournment debate secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley in 2016. He said that

“families in very difficult circumstances with complicated cases have gone unrepresented while public bodies and individuals are represented at a cost to the public. The Ministry of Justice and the Home Office are rightly working collaboratively to consider that issue”

and

“are looking at the best way forward.”—[Official Report, 26 October 2016; Vol. 616, c. 400-402.]

Furthermore, in October last year the Lord Chancellor issued a written ministerial statement confirming that a post-legislative review of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, better known as LASPO, was commencing. Will the Minister please update the House on the progress of that post-legislative review, particularly given that a number of bodies, not least the Law Society, have called for the criteria for providing public funding to be simplified, and for the guidance to the Legal Aid Agency to be amended to widen the scope for funding for representation, particularly of bereaved families?

Irrespective of what progress is or is not being made in those inter-departmental discussions and in the post-legislative review, the issue of how these families’ cases will be funded at the Court of Appeal will not wait. If the system has failed them, and if legal aid has failed them, it is time for the Government to step up to the plate directly and make public funds available some other way. It is simply about fairness and parity. Justice demands no less.