Legal Aid Reform

Jake Berry Excerpts

Thursday 27th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas]

rose—

[Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)]

rose—

[Sarah Teather]

I will give way first to the hon. Lady and then to the hon. Gentleman, but after that I must make some progress.

[Sarah Teather]

I entirely agree with the hon. Lady. She was referring, of course, to the changes in civil rather than criminal legal aid. I think that the costs are likely to be significantly greater, especially if people remain in detention or cannot be released from hospital.

[Jake Berry]

Let me begin by drawing Members’ attention to my declaration of interest, largely because I am immensely proud of being a solicitor. What concerns me most is discrimination against small high street practices such as Holt and Longworth and other small firms in my constituency, which, although they are the backbone of our profession, will probably cease to exist.

[Sarah Teather]

I find it extremely worrying that the Government should pursue a line that would put small and medium-sized firms out of business, apparently deliberately. It flies in the face of everything they are trying to do to promote growth and the high streets. I trust that the Minister has noted what the hon. Gentleman said.

I hope that the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) will catch your eye later, Madam Deputy Speaker, because I know that she wishes to speak specifically about issues relating to civil legal aid for prisoners. I shall not have time to speak about that myself, but I think that it is important for it to be covered today.

Let me now say something about the residence test. As a former children’s Minister, I know that the proposed changes have particular implications for children, and as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on refugees, I am very concerned about the impact on those who seek sanctuary on our shores.

The Bill that became the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishing of Offenders Act was highly contentious and fiercely debated in both Houses. Many were persuaded of the need to save money, but all sought to ensure that the most vulnerable members of society would continue to have access to justice. Time and again, Ministers assured the House of Commons that when people’s lives or liberty were at stake, access to justice would be preserved. However, the new residence test appears to undermine that directly.

Schedule 1 of the Act lists the categories that the Government sought to protect from cuts—groups whom they recognised to have a vital need for legal representation. Children who may be subject to care orders, children with special educational needs, victims of domestic violence, victims of trafficking, asylum cases, those in immigration detention, those facing immediate homelessness, and those with mental health issues are just a few of the very vulnerable groups that are identified. I am afraid that people in all those categories may be denied legal aid if they fail to pass the residence test.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Djanogly]

They do. The consultation considers very high cost cases and identifies them as a specific area that needs to be looked at. I agree with that.

During debates on what is now the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, Labour spokesmen said that we should be looking at making savings by contracting criminal legal aid rather than touching civil legal aid. Now it seems that they have made another U-turn and are saying that they do not want criminal contracting at all. The position of Labour Members is not only inconsistent but deeply irresponsible, because they still acknowledge the need for legal aid savings but do not have a clue how to deliver them in practice. That is not the position of a party that can be serious about government.

[Jake Berry]

The criminal legal aid solicitors to whom I have spoken in my constituency have said that they would prefer a further cut in their rate to the structural changes the Government are talking about, because those structural changes mean that a solicitor in Rawtenstall has to travel to Blackpool to go to the police station. That is completely unsustainable.

[Mr Djanogly]

Further cuts in the rate are the easy option. The market is out of sync with the legal profession and it needs reform.

My theory is that Labour’s contracting proposals failed because they not only succumbed to the reactionary wing of the legal profession but shied from the bottom line facts of criminal legal aid contracting, which are that in order to get efficiencies and savings, contracting will always involve fewer but larger practices operating over a larger area. If the market is to be sustainable, there must be fewer firms each receiving a larger slice of the remaining pie.

Although I support the Government’s consultation and the contracting proposals in general, my personal view is that we are missing an opportunity radically to restructure the market and bring it into line with modern practice norms. At the core of that lies the need to consider the type of organisation that can bid and how they are paid. The historic position in England and Wales is that the client instructs a solicitor and then, particularly for more complicated advocacy, the solicitor employs a barrister. That involves two fees and I would strongly advocate moving to a single fee.