Legal Aid Reform

Debate between Ian Swales and Dominic Raab

Thursday 27th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Ian Swales]

I agree with my hon. Friend. I repeat: private companies will seek to maximise their profits. I advise anyone who doubts that to check the financial incentives in the GP out-of-hours contracts and then look at what has happened to the number of people attending hospital accident and emergency centres.

I will now deal with contracting. This time last week, I was in Westminster Hall discussing the court translation services debacle—a true horror story. The response from the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant), showed breathtaking complacency about the overall effect on and cost to the courts system. She even seemed to be content with a present failure rate that is five times greater than the one contracted for. In addition, as has been noted, early results coming in on the new civil legal aid arrangements show more court cases, not fewer, and many cases doubling in length owing to inadequate representation. Again, I ask whether the Ministry is counting the full costs.

The most lucrative business in this country now seems to be winning Government bidding rounds, then—ideally—selling the contract for a quick profit, as we saw with the court translation service, or taking fat fees and getting other people to do the work, as we see in the Work programme.

[Mr Raab]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Ian Swales]

I am running out of time.

The Ministry has touching faith that many groups of lawyers will come together to bid; in fact, it will be largely the same magic circle of outsourcers, who hover like vultures around the award of almost every public contract—with the rumoured addition this time of a supermarket and a haulage company. One company likely to win work, of course, is G4S, with which the Secretary of State will be familiar from his previous job. G4S’s success in winning work in this sector raises the spectre that a person could be arrested, then have G4S legally representing them at the police station; providing the civilian staff processing them there; transporting them to court; representing them there; owning the court in which that person is tried; tagging them if they are on bail; and, if they are found guilty, transporting them to a G4S prison—oh, and it is quite possible that when they are released, G4S will be in charge of their rehabilitation. The potential perverse incentives in that chain are mind-boggling. I urge the Ministry of Justice to ensure that its contract packages meet its stated aims. The Ministry’s record on contracting is appalling. How will it be different this time?

I end with two questions for the Minister. First, if he or a member of his family were arrested, would he be happy with the new arrangements? Secondly, has he heard the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) express delight that he has just found the cheapest lawyer to fight his case against the Metropolitan police? I doubt it. Equal access to justice is a cornerstone of our society. The Minister has a lot to do to convince this House that that remains an objective of his Department and that it is competent to deliver it.