Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

Complements—it might do both, but I hope it will complement our efforts to tackle drugs in prison.

Drugs are widely available in prisons, but we shall start by introducing drug-free wings. My single most radical proposal on rehabilitation is a non-legislative change to introduce a fundamental shift in how we approach the issue by paying by results to unlock private capital, benefit from the innovation of the voluntary sector and get the whole system pulling in the same direction. We will pay providers a return on their ethical investment for what works in the public interest: turning criminals into ex-criminals should be an object of the system.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I am interested in the Secretary of State’s comments on the number of people in our prisons who, unfortunately, suffer from mental illness and need support and treatment, which is often inadequate. Will he recognise the greater problem: that many people who need support with mental illness or who are experiencing mental health crises do not get it, and there are insufficient resources and insufficient understanding among the police and others that the real cause of minor offences often is mental illness and nothing else. We need a more sympathetic, supportive and therapeutic approach to dealing with these poor, unfortunate people.

[Mr Clarke]

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health agrees with the hon. Gentleman and me. My ministerial team and my right hon. Friend’s ministerial team have been holding discussions. My right hon. Friend has a strategy for trying to improve mental health services to the population as a whole. As part of that we are addressing what can be done to help the mentally ill who find themselves in prison. Some of them should be diverted from the criminal justice system altogether; some can be better treated in secure accommodation in the national health service; and many can be treated better than they are at present when being incarcerated in prison is not suitable. I assure the hon. Gentleman that my right hon. Friend and I share his concern.

Underpinning punishment, reparation and rehabilitation is what might be called system reform—simplification, restoration of discretion to judges and the relief of unnecessary pressures on the system. At the same time we must take a more robust approach to costs in the system, including that of prison. We have already shown that through competition it is possible to get prison costs down while improving service quality. Key measures in the Bill include reforming the use of remand. I dealt with this a moment ago. I have told the House that preventing reoffending is the central idea of my reforms. One of the main barriers to doing things in the past few years has been the fact that the prisons have been clogged up, sometimes with people who do not need to be there at all. I will not repeat the arguments that I made a moment ago that give rise to the part of the Bill that restricts the power of courts to remand those who have no reasonable prospect of receiving a custodial sentence, with the exception that I have already described of cases of domestic violence.

Sentencing Reform/Legal Aid

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Tuesday 21st June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. The figure she repeats—one in two ex-offenders will be caught and convicted within a year of leaving prison—is truly extraordinary. I agree that proper change is needed. We need to protect the public from the worst of that, and where prisoners have the gumption to respond and try to get themselves out of their way of life and become honest citizens again, we should make more of them do so. I am sure that that would be appreciated in Erewash, as it would across the rest of the country.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State invited us to look at what the situation will be four years down the line. Does he not expect there to be a larger and more expensive prison population, with prisoners serving very long sentences for some of the offences for which he is increasing the tariff, and that there will be a large number of people denied access to legal aid, fewer advice services, fewer CABs and a lot of people very disgruntled that justice is not available to them because they are too poor?

Legal Aid

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2011 Westminster Hall

[Dr Huppert]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I hope to talk later about the effect of the Jackson changes, how legal aid will work then and the double whammy that people may face with the two changes being rolled up together.

Lastly on the subject of special educational needs, I am sure that other hon. Members have had constituents coming to see them, as I have. My constituents take special educational needs appeals for their children very seriously. They are very concerned. A number of people have come to see me. They are terrified both about what will happen to their own children and about the future. They see education as critical to their children’s future. I could talk about other aspects, but time moves on apace.

Hon. Members may be aware that I have a passionate interest in matters to do with immigration and asylum. I chair the all-party group on refugees, as well as being a member of the Home Affairs Committee, which is chaired by the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), and it is a great pleasure to see him here today. I am of course pleased that asylum will remain within the scope of legal aid, but it is extremely concerning that other immigration cases have been excluded. Even under existing arrangements, immigration legal aid providers are struggling to remain viable; if we confine legal aid to asylum, it is doubtful whether good quality practitioners will continue to be available. There is already a surfeit of poor quality lawyers and advisers working in this field, and we would all benefit from better provision because many of them are not up to scratch.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. Is he aware that many of the legal aid practitioners that used to deal largely with immigration matters in inner London have gone under? I frequently represent people at immigration appeal tribunal hearings, and I know that a disturbing number of claimants with strong cases are completely unrepresented, and that all kinds of family breakdowns and misery result. It is not necessary to invest a great deal of money in order for the most vulnerable to get reasonable access to justice.

[Dr Huppert]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. He is right. I am not an expert on the position in London, but I know the Cambridge area and I realise that there is a shortage of good people. I see that with my constituents time and again.

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[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) on obtaining the debate and on how he introduced it. It is a valuable subject. I apologise in advance to the Minister as I might miss part of his reply because I have a delegation from Disability Action in Islington to meet just before 4 o’clock. I hope that he understands that I need to be there to see them.

This is not the first or, I suspect, the last debate that we will have on legal aid. I hope that the Minister will give us an idea of when the Government will respond to the consultation. I hope that there will be adequate time for us to digest their response and a full day’s debate on the Floor of the House long before any legislation or changes are put in place.

It must be almost unprecedented to have 5,000 replies to a consultation of this nature—I am sure that the Minister has read all of them. I hope that he read the one from Jeremy Corbyn, MP for Islington North, because it was greatly laboured over. It did not involve only my views; I called a consultation meeting of local legal aid practitioners, advice agencies, the local authority and others, so what I put forward is on their behalf as much as my own. They have extremely strong views about the situation, as one can imagine.

The knock-on effects of legal aid and Ministry of Justice budget support to advice agencies are very important indeed. I do not believe—any more than anybody else does—that people should litigate for the sake of litigation. However, effective citizens advice bureaux play a very important part in giving people access to justice ahead of the danger of going to law. Cuts in CAB budgets or advice budgets are simply not very sensible at any time—particularly now, when many people are facing economic difficulties.

I pay enormous tribute to Islington council, which has just managed to reopen the CAB in the borough. It reopened on 1 April and it is already heavily overloaded, as we had predicted, but it is doing its best in the circumstances. Commendably, there is a liaison arrangement between the CAB, Islington Law Centre, Islington People’s Rights and the local authority, to ensure that they share out responsibility and specialist knowledge to offer any particular help that is required. That is very good as it ends the idea of competition between advice agencies, particularly where funding is concerned.

There are many issues to be covered in this debate, but I want to be brief as the Front-Bench spokesmen obviously need to respond. Housing issues are massive and they are faced by people in inner city communities, such as the one that I have the honour to represent, probably more than by anyone else. I will just quote from an e-mail that I received from Anne Baxendale of Shelter about this issue:

“The government is proposing to remove all housing benefits cases and a third of other housing cases from the scope of legal aid. Shelter is alarmed that this is happening at the same time that huge changes are taking place within homelessness legislation, social housing tenure and the housing benefit system.”

People are already coming to my surgery or advice bureau about this issue and the same is true for Islington People’s Rights, Islington Law Centre and the CAB. Those people are being told that their housing benefit, or housing allowance, is insufficient to meet the new rent levels; even with the transitional payments, they are nowhere near meeting them. In some cases, they are £100 a week—or even more—light on the demands being made of them. The only alternative for them is to move to somewhere else that is cheaper—if they can afford to do so, given all the associated uprooting. These people are scared, even terrified, and they desperately need access to good-quality legal representation to protect themselves at a time of emergency. Taking legal aid away from such people is simply grossly unfair—it would be unfair at any time, but it is particularly unfair at this time.

I will be very brief on the issues relating to children, as there is not much time left. The question of children and immigration issues is a very great one indeed. I understand, appreciate and welcome the fact—indeed, I applaud it—that asylum cases have been removed from this picture. Contrary to what the hon. Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) said, I do not believe that there is an endless merry-go-round of appeals. What I have found is that there is an incredible degree of inefficiency at the Home Office and the Border and Immigration Agency, such that asylum cases often hang around for years.

I am embarrassed to tell people that they must wait a year for a reply to a letter and that if they phone up the Home Office they will only make things worse. That is not how a Government Department or any public service should ever deal with or respond to anybody. I say to the Minister that he should keep legal aid for asylum cases, but he might ask his colleagues at the Home Office kindly to reply to letters and not lose files. I have said that to every Government I have had dealings with, so it is not a party political point; I said it to my own Government and I will say it to any Government.

The decision to give legal aid only for cases of detention is simply unfair. If legal aid is given, an application is made and the person is then released from detention. However, they then lose legal aid; they might end up back in detention where they might get legal aid again, so that they are on a merry-go-round. It is simply not credible that such an arbitrary distinction can be made between support for detention and support for immigration cases. Immigration cases should either be supported or not; I do not see how a simple distinction can be drawn in that way.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend and I are part of a 10-year campaign to try to get the proper inspection and registration of immigration advisers. These measures could take us back to those back-street advisers again, whereby the most vulnerable people are exploited in dreadful ways and wind up in detention as a result.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I was just talking to my hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue) about the exploitative individuals—and, frankly, the chancers—who have now become involved in immigration law. Basically they are spivs, who charge very vulnerable people very large sums of money for writing letters. They do no more than that. Some of them are not even qualified.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) is absolutely right. For many years, we campaigned in this House for proper registration of immigration practitioners and for an end to immigration advisers, who in any case are often unqualified. The late Bernie Grant, the former MP for Tottenham, was extremely active on that issue and we basically got rid of most of those immigration advisers. However, they are all back now, big-time, and they are making a great deal of money out of extremely vulnerable people. I am sure that the Minister is aware of that problem. It has been reflected in many of the submissions made to him and I look forward to a response from him that recognises that.

The final point that I want to make about children is about the removal of legal aid for education cases. I have a distressing number of immigration cases in my constituency involving education. I do not have a vast number of them, but they are often very distressing and the people involved need representation. That is because some children who are suspended or expelled from school then have to go to another school. Unfortunately their representation and their files often follow them around and they end up being almost totally excluded from the whole education system. That is not good for them and it is not good for anybody. Proper representation would often prevent that situation from happening.

The number of cases that are dealt with by legal aid in this country at the moment is 934,000, apparently. Unless the Minister is going to give us some very good news at the end of the month, or whenever the reply to the consultation comes, the cuts being proposed will mean that more than 600,000 people will not have access to legal aid. If we want a fair, decent and just society, everyone must have access to the law. We are seeking not a litigation society, but a justice society and I hope that the Minister will understand the strength of feeling expressed in the representations that he receives on this matter.

The vast majority of solicitors and barristers acting on legal aid cases do not make much money out of that work. They make far more money on commercial cases, libel cases, media cases or “personality”-driven cases. The majority of solicitors I meet who deal with legal aid cases that are hard to sort out are paid very little. They work very hard and they are doing us a lot of good.

Furthermore, the loss of training contracts means that many of the solicitors of tomorrow will not be around to represent people. Many young people are studying law in universities and colleges at present. We want them to use their skills and we want them to represent the hardest-hit and most vulnerable people in society. I ask the Minister to think carefully about the very thoughtful and very carefully prepared representations that I know he has received on this subject.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Wednesday 30th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Ann Clwyd]

The amendment would remove clause 152. At the outset, I should like to say that whatever one’s views on the changes proposed by the clause, it should not be part of the Bill. It is a justice measure in a Home Office Bill, which is already packed. It would be better if the Government had not crow-barred it into the Bill. However, I am glad that we have an opportunity to debate the measure, although we cannot debate it to the extent that other Members and I would have liked.

The Government propose to change the law on the procedure for obtaining an arrest warrant in a private prosecution in a universal jurisdiction case. Such cases are concerned with the gravest crimes against humanity: war crimes, torture, genocide and so on. The Government propose that the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions should be required before any such arrest warrant can be issued.

My area of interest is human rights, so it is on the human rights implications of the clause that I shall focus. I object to the clause and the Government’s proposals because they will undermine the UK’s standing on international human rights issues. The current situation in Libya and recent events there and elsewhere in north Africa and the middle east provide a helpful context for the debate. For example, if anyone from Gaddafi’s regime—his sons or other senior political and military cohorts—tries to visit the UK at some point in future, they will be affected by this change in the law.

The Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and other Ministers have been strong in their condemnation of Gaddafi, in their calls for him to face justice, and in their support for the International Criminal Court investigation. I agree with them. The best place for Gaddafi to end up is in front of a court on an ICC indictment for crimes against humanity. However, the existence of the ICC does not absolve us of responsibility to ensure that those most serious of crimes can be prosecuted within our jurisdiction.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the current situation is the best one, because it keeps the Government away from allegations of political bias in cases in which arrests are sought for a court in this country? Clause 152 will bring every prosecution into the political orbit, where it certainly should not be.

[Ann Clwyd]

My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head as usual, and I shall develop that argument in a few minutes.

We still have obligations under the Geneva conventions —they are obligations, and not discretions or permissions —to bring before a court persons suspected of committing the gravest crimes against humanity when we are able to do so. This change in the law will undermine our commitment to those Geneva convention obligations.

Why, then, are the Government seeking to change the law? The Justice Secretary, yesterday, and the Foreign Secretary, last Thursday, set out clearly in replies to questions in the Chamber the reasons why the Government are seeking to do so. The first reason that they gave was that it is too easy to obtain an arrest warrant. They suggested that anyone could turn up on a frivolous pretext, spin a yarn to the court and walk away with an arrest warrant—put a penny in the slot and out comes a warrant! I cannot believe that that argument has carried any weight with anyone at all.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Ellis]

I am not concerned, as my hon. Friend appears to be, about the Attorney-General, because safeguards are built into our system in this country. The Attorney-General has been in a position similar to that envisaged in the Bill for decades, and there is no evidence whatever that that has been a problem in other areas. There are prosecutions in this country that can take place only with the consent of the Attorney-General, and there are other prosecutions that can take place only with the consent of the DPP—I myself have been involved in one or two of them—but no one is suggesting that those cases involve political interference. The reality is that we have to have safeguards against the misuse of a process that has increasingly been employed in highly controversial circumstances and has deeply injurious effects on international relations and British relations. As I have already enunciated, my primary concern is to maintain the good standing of the English legal system.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The hon. Gentleman is deeply confusing me; I hope he did not confuse the courts in the same way when he was practising. We are trying to ensure that people against whom there is prima facie evidence of war crimes or crimes against humanity could be subject to an arrest warrant in this country. The opposite of that is that they would be welcome in this country. I am sure that is not the hon. Gentleman’s intention, but it is beginning to sound a bit like it.

[Michael Ellis]

Of course it is not my intention that war criminals be welcomed to this country. They would be welcome to be prosecuted in this country, and I would support that. The reality is very different, however, and we must ensure that only appropriate people in appropriate circumstances are subject to the heavy penalty of arrest.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vernon Coaker]

The point that I am making is that the DPP’s involvement is to prevent that politicisation, and I was reassured by what he said when he gave evidence to the Committee.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I am disappointed in the shadow Minister’s line of argument, because on the question of arraigning someone for crimes against humanity or war crimes, he appears to be saying that there has to be a foreign policy consideration. Surely the decision whether to grant an arrest warrant should be made solely on an evidential basis within international law. It should not be about the perceptions or otherwise of this country, or any other, about foreign policy.

[Vernon Coaker]

I know that my hon. Friend feels strongly about this, but we are supporting the amendment because this is not only about arrest but about securing prosecution and increasing the likelihood that people can be prosecuted. That is why we support what the Government propose, now that the DPP is involved.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Tuesday 15th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Djanogly]

My hon. Friend says that some centres find that legal and social issues cannot be distinguished, but that depends on how they are funded. For instance, only 50% of CABs receive any Ministry of Justice funding whatever. That very much depends on whether a centre offers general or legal help. However, I repeat that we realise that advice provision needs to be looked at on a cross-departmental basis. We appreciate that there is an issue for not-for-profits, and we are determined to address it.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

Is the Minister aware that the other funding streams he talks about are often from local government to advice bureaux, law centres and CABs? All over the country, they are being decimated. Many valuable voluntary advice services that give not legal advice, but wraparound, general advice, face enormous cuts. Thus, people lose out on benefits and opportunities, and often end up homeless as a result of a lack of appropriate advice at the necessary time.

[Mr Djanogly]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very fair point, and has clarified a point that I made earlier: there is a difference between general advice and legal advice. We appreciate that not-for-profits have an issue when we consider funding streams all added together. Those who attended the legal aid debate two weeks ago would have heard me make a plea to local government to support the general advice provided by their CABs. I repeat that plea today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Clarke]

As the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Mr Blunt), said in reply to a question a moment ago, sentencing is a matter for the Sentencing Guidelines Council and for the judges, who hear all the facts of the case; they can hear a victim’s statement and they can hear mitigation for the accused. We keep an eye on percentages, of course, but the sentence in each case has to be the appropriate sentence for the facts of and the offender in the case. Although burglary is a serious offence that normally attracts imprisonment, it covers a wide range of circumstances, from someone breaking in with a hood over his head in the middle of the night to someone walking through an open door grabbing a knick-knack and running out through the door again. So we have to leave it to the judges.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

T6. Has the Secretary of State considered carefully the representations that he will have received concerning clause 151 of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill on universal jurisdiction? He will be aware that restricting access to the British courts in respect of crimes against humanity committed anywhere in the world will send a very bad message to the rest of the world and will make this country a more pleasant place for war criminals and those who have committed crimes against humanity to try to come to.

[Mr Clarke]

I must make it absolutely clear that the Government are not reducing, in any way, the importance we attach to the proper enforcement of the law against those guilty of war crimes or crimes against humanity. We are making a slight change to the circumstances in which a citizen can obtain an arrest. The prior approval of the Director of Public Prosecutions will be needed, in order to make sure that there is a reasonable prospect of prosecution in the case; that is not where we are at the moment. I assure the hon. Gentleman that nobody on either side of the House wishes to see this country downgrade the importance we attach to enforcing crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Legal Aid Reform

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue) on securing this debate, which has been an excellent example of Back-Bench debates focusing on an issue that is causing great concern in constituencies around the country. We have heard many good speeches from both sides of the House.

It is appropriate that Members on both sides of the House speak in defence of legal aid, because it was on the recommendation of a Committee headed by a Conservative peer Lord Rushcliffe that legal aid was first proposed in 1943, and it was a Labour Government and a Labour Attorney-General, Sir Hartley Shawcross, who piloted the Legal Aid and Advice Act 1949 through Parliament. The Secretary of State for Justice says that he wishes to return to the original intent of legal aid, but the original intent of legal aid is captured in paragraph 40 of Magna Carta:

“To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice.”

Those were the very words that Sir Hartley Shawcross had in mind when he said on Second Reading of the 1949 Act:

“It is a Bill which will open the doors of the courts freely to all persons who may wish to avail themselves of British justice without regard to the question of their wealth or ability to pay.”—[Official Report, 15 December 1948; Vol. 459, c. 1221.]

The Government’s Green Paper presents their plans as a return to the founding intent of legal aid, but they are in fact the exact opposite. They will remove the average person’s ability to seek justice.

I wish to focus on the cuts that will cause most damage—those to social welfare legal aid—but that is not to say that there are no problems with other aspects of the Government’s proposals. The narrow definition of domestic violence cases will leave women and children vulnerable and less able to seek help; the failure sufficiently to address the costs of very high-cost criminal cases is a mistake and a missed opportunity; and taking clinical negligence out of scope, alongside proposed changes to civil litigation funding, will end the ability of many people to challenge negligence and malpractice. However, it is the cuts to social welfare legal aid that we find most unacceptable. They will result in the complete collapse of the social welfare advisory sector, and do so, ironically, at huge cost to the state.

In the short time that I have, let me give five reasons why those cuts are wrong. First, the advisory sector will all but disappear. The Government propose to eliminate almost all legal aid for social welfare, including legal aid for debt, housing, education, welfare, employment and immigration cases. They will cut funding for many advisory services, such as citizens advice bureaux and law centres.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

Is my Friend aware that the High Court this week found in favour of the Mary Ward centre and other voluntary organisations that were threatened with a huge cut by London Councils on the ground that inadequate equality assessments were made in advance of the proposed cuts? That is a taster of what is to come if the Government try to put those cuts through.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Djanogly]

I am pleased to hear some clarification of what the Opposition are not going to do; perhaps the hon. Gentleman will come back to the House to tell us what they are going to do, so that we can take a view on where they are coming from on this issue, because they have been thoroughly unimpressive to date.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Djanogly]

No, I will not.

The proposals in our consultation paper take into account the importance of the issue at stake, the litigant’s ability to present their own case, the availability of alternative sources of funding and alternative routes to resolving the issue, as well as our domestic and international legal obligations. I should also point out that the consultation is still open, and that I am therefore here to listen to hon. Members’ views rather than to agree or disagree with any particular view.

We propose to focus financial support, and legal advice and representation, on those who need it most. The proposed reforms involve significant change to the scope of legal aid funding. Having said that, I should make it clear that we are not proposing any changes to the scope of criminal legal aid, and that legal aid will also still routinely be available in civil and family cases in which people’s life or liberty is at stake, or in which a person is at risk of serious physical harm or immediate loss of their home. For example, I can confirm to the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) that we plan to retain legal aid for asylum cases, but not for immigration cases, except when the person is in detention.

Legal aid will also be retained for debt and housing matters when someone’s home is at immediate risk, and for mental health cases. It will still be provided when people face intervention from the state in their family affairs that could result in their children being taken into care, and for cases involving domestic violence, child abduction or forced marriage. We also propose that legal aid should remain available for cases in which people seek to hold the state to account by judicial review for the most serious claims against public authorities. We shall also keep it for cases involving discrimination that are currently in scope, and for community care cases where the recipients are often very elderly and vulnerable.

Many hon. Members raised the question of telephone advice. Although that will provide a gateway, it will not stop face-to-face advice being given when that is appropriate. It will facilitate the more effective sourcing of services and help the disabled. People will be able to ask to be called back, as is currently the case, so the cost would be low. I should like to tell my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb) that we believe the telephone advice will assist people in rural areas, and that language translation will be catered for, particularly for Welsh speakers. The service currently has a satisfaction rating of more than 90%, so we see it as a very good service.

We recognise that there will be some cases, even within the areas of law that we propose to remove from scope, that international or domestic law will require to be funded by the taxpayer, or inquest cases where there is a significant wider public interest in funding legal representation. We therefore propose a new exceptional funding scheme for excluded cases. We also consider that the long-drawn-out, acrimonious nature of court proceedings too often exacerbates disputes rather than solve them. Alternatives often exist that are not only cheaper than rushing to court but faster and less contentious. So we will continue to provide funding for family mediation, to encourage people to use this more effective method to resolve issues between themselves, rather than using up precious taxpayers’ money and the courts’ time.

Of course, mediation is only one alternative to court proceedings. Work is going on across government to change our litigation culture and encourage alternative and less acrimonious dispute resolution. For example, the Government are currently seeking views on measures to achieve more early resolution of workplace disputes through ACAS conciliation, so that all parties have a chance to resolve their own problems in a way that is fair and equitable for both sides, without having to go to an employment tribunal.

Likewise, the Department for Education is looking into involving parents in early discussions and decisions about the special educational needs support that they need, so that they do not have to battle through the tribunal process. I think it was the hon. Member for Westminster North who said that 82% of appellants in SEN matters succeeded in their appeals. I should point out to her, however, that just 18% of parents are currently legally represented in those appeals.

On eligibility, we are not changing the criminal means-testing introduced by the previous Government. In civil cases, however, we believe that those able to pay for or contribute to the costs of their case should do so. This will help to ensure continued access to public funding, in those cases that really require it, for those who have little or no funds of their own. The consultation paper therefore includes the proposal that all clients with £1,000 or more of disposable capital should make a minimum £100 contribution to their legal costs, and that the capital of any prospective legal aid clients is taken into account when considering eligibility. We believe that this will encourage a greater sense of personal responsibility by giving clients a greater financial interest in the conduct of their case, as well as helping to discourage unnecessary litigation at taxpayers’ expense.

Many Members, including the hon. Members for Makerfield, for Westminster North, for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) and for North Tyneside (Mrs Glindon), the right hon. Member for Exeter and my hon. Friends the Members for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd) and for South Swindon (Mr Buckland), made points about the highly valued not-for-profit sector. Having frequently met the CAB, Shelter and other voluntary groups, I appreciate that the not-for-profit sector has particular concerns, but the important point is that this issue goes way beyond legal aid. Indeed, funding from legal aid represents a minority of many CABs’ income—we believe only about 15% of CABs’ income comes from legal aid—and many do not receive any legal aid income at all; the three CABs in my constituency receive no legal aid money, for example. That is because the basic role of CABs is to give general advice, not necessarily legal aid advice, as they have been allowed to do only for the past 11 years. The problem, however, for those that do give legal advice is that legal aid funding will often merge with other funding streams. CABs are funded mainly by local councils and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills centrally, and removing one stream could have a knock-on effect, but that does not make it wrong for us to be unwilling to pay legal aid for general advice.

The reality is that the funding streams have been in conflict for years, and effort and services have been duplicated and resources wasted, although the previous Government never sorted this out while their money machine was pumping away. We have recognised this problem, and I am pleased to be able to say that we are working closely with the Cabinet Office-based Office for Civil Society, which will look at this important issue across Government. To answer a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), I should say that transitional funding may be available.

We certainly see an important role for not-for-profit organisations in the advice sector. The coalition Government support such organisations, including CABs, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) said, we hope that local government will share our view that they play an integral part in civil society. I am also happy to look at the issue raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Mr Binley).

The hon. Members for Makerfield and for Westminster North, my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye and others spoke about welfare benefits. We recognise that some people find publicly funded legal advice and advice on welfare benefit matters helpful. However, the user-friendly nature of the tribunal means that appellants can generally present their case without assistance. More particularly, the issues raised are normally ones that should be dealt with by general advice, not legal aid. When I visited a law centre recently, I was shocked to hear that local benefits officers were sending people to the law centre for advice on what benefits they could claim. This is a bizarre situation, and it is not going to be solved by throwing legal aid money at the problem.