Legal Aid Reform

Debate between Jonathan Djanogly and Jake Berry

Thursday 27th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[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.