Legal Aid Reform

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Thursday 27th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for reducing the speaking time and ensuring that all Members are called. There is a message here: I hope we have another debate, at greater length, when we can have a vote on this important topic. Although it is always regrettable when the Secretary of State cannot be present, the good news is that he will be before the Justice Committee next week, so we will be able to ask him a few questions there.

There are some serious questions to be asked. We have gone through the miserable experience of LASPO, we have already seen the effects of the loss of legal aid, we have seen in our surgeries many people who cannot find a lawyer to help them, and many legal aid practices have already gone under in high-cost inner-city areas where low-income families are desperate to receive justice. I hope that we will have a serious response to the Ministry of Justice’s rather rushed consultation.

Like all Members who have spoken, I have received many representations on this matter. I do not have time to quote from or refer to them all, but I would like us to remember one important underlying principle. When the current legal aid system, more or less, was introduced in the 1940s—it was built on the rather ineffective system that existed before—the then Government, who were much more far-sighted than this Government, considered legal aid to be as valuable to justice in our society as health, education, housing or the welfare state system that prevented people from falling into destitution. What we are approaching, if we are not already there, is a system in which if someone is poor, destitute, marginalised and up against it, they will get no help and no justice and will continue to suffer. Legal aid is fundamentally important in a democratic, civilized society in which a person can have their day in court to get a verdict in their favour or otherwise.

I will mention the representations I received from INQUEST, a good organisation based in my constituency. It rightly points out that the cases of Jean Charles de Menezes and Jimmy Mubenga could not have been taken to court had these proposals been in operation. It also points out that the proposals are likely to breach article 2 of the European convention on human rights, which concerns the right to life. The Immigration Law Practitioners Association, which over many years has done fantastic work on ensuring that everyone is represented and gets advice, points out, in relation to judicial reviews:

“This is not an immigration problem or even a legal aid problem. It is a problem of access to justice, of equality of arms, of holding the State to account.”

That is what a judicial review must be about.

For those busy telling us that every lawyer is a venal fat cat interested only in practising commercial law and leaving the rest of the people to rot, I have an interesting e-mail from a young solicitor in my constituency. Jed Pennington, who has a good law degree from Cambridge university, turned down work in the commercial sector to work pro bono on many other things and on legal aid the rest of the time. He, like many others, is not a fat-cat lawyer. They are doing it because they believe in justice.

Matrix and Bindmans have pointed out that the proposed savings are nonsense. The cost increase will be at least £24 million if the proposals go through. It is time for this House to assert itself and listen to organisations such as the Islington Law Centre, which does great work in pointing out that loss of legal aid is loss of right and loss of justice. Reject it.