Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Julie Elliott Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to take part in this important debate, Mr Deputy Speaker. I agree with many of the comments made by the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant). The Government should listen to her experience and knowledge.

For 60 years, legal aid has provided secure and guaranteed access to justice for those who cannot otherwise afford legal representation, often protecting the most vulnerable in our society. With their reforms, the Government are undermining the principles of justice. The right to access it will become the privilege of the few who can afford it. The more I understand about the Government’s approach to justice policy, the more I realise that there is nothing just about it. Despite receiving thousands of representations from a wide range of organisations expert in delivering legal aid effectively and productively that say this is not the right approach, the Government are not willing to listen.

We know that seeking legal representation is an expensive undertaking. I understand that, but the Government are trying, inexcusably, to put a price on justice, which is embedded in the British democratic system. That undermines us as a free and fair society where all have an equal right to justice. Everyone has the right to be treated fairly under the British legal system. Who someone is, how much they earn and where they live should not be taken into account. The expense of access to our legal system makes legal aid so important. Justice is a right, not a privilege. Everyone deserves their day in court.

The Government have said that they want to ensure through the reforms that legal aid is targeted at those who most need it. They must have made a mistake. Surely that cannot be correct when they are cutting legal aid for the aspects of law that are often the last protection for the most vulnerable in our society: housing, debt, welfare and employment advice. Legal aid has stood up for people and given them the voice that they deserve. I am not sure where the Government expect an alternative to step in to deal with representation and advice in the aspects of law that will be removed from the scope of legal aid provision. Perhaps it is another job for the big society.

When people have to represent themselves in court because they cannot afford the legal fees, something is not right. As with so much of their legislation, the Government have left the most vulnerable wanting. It is a travesty that 500,000 people will be denied their right to legal representation and a chance for justice. The Secretary of State has said:

“It cannot be right that the taxpayer is footing the bill for unnecessary court cases that would never have even reached the courtroom door, were it not for the fact that somebody else was paying.”—[Official Report, 15 November 2010; Vol. 518, c. 659.]

I seriously object to that trivialisation of our justice system. The right hon. and learned Gentleman’s reference to “unnecessary court cases” shows where the Government have gone wrong. Debt, social welfare, housing and education law are not unnecessary. They are serious and complex areas of law that deserve their chance in court.

Legal aid provision has improved and strengthened our laws on protections and compensation and given justice to victims of negligence. Legal aid has been critical in many precedent-setting cases, such as the Hillsborough disaster, the thalidomide cases and the Clapham rail crash. Advances in case law as a direct result of legal aid provision have improved protections for everyone. British law is in a better place because of the chance to access legal aid. Although I can sympathise to some extent with the Government’s desire to promote other forms of legal settlement outside a courtroom, such as through mediation, that should be an alternative, not the only option. In my experience, it does not always work.

[Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government do not seem to have taken on board the fact that sometimes solving disputes out of court is possible only when the credible sanction of going to court at some stage is available? By taking that away, they undermine the system of mediation in which they put so much faith, and that will lead to miscarriages of justice.

[Julie Elliott]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. The stick-and-carrot approach, whereby there is something to make people see sense, agree and discuss things sensibly, often makes the difference between mediation working and not working.

Despite the Government’s laissez-faire approach to access to our legal system and their willingness again to leave the most vulnerable members of our society out in the cold, one of my biggest problems with the reforms to legal aid provision is their economic short-sightedness. The cuts will ultimately lead to higher costs for society. The cost-benefit analysis of the reforms has shown that they are not cost-effective, but short-sighted and counter-productive. The costs to society will have to met elsewhere, by other Departments, including the Department of Health, the Home Office and the Department for Communities and Local Government. It is disappointing that, despite calls for it, no cross-Government departmental review is taking place to assess the inevitable extra costs.

Yesterday, I asked about the matter at Justice questions, and was told that other Departments’ impact analysis of the proposals was “ongoing”. Surely that should have been sorted out before Second Reading. Citizens Advice estimates that £24 million spent annually on debt advice saves the Government some £188 million elsewhere, and that for every £1 spent on legal aid, the state saves £2.34 on housing advice, £7.13 on employment advice and £8.80 on benefits advice.

[Rehman Chishti]

rose—

[Julie Elliott]

I may not be an economist, but I am a British taxpayer and I can tell the House that the figures simply do not add up.

Even the Justice Committee, in its third report on legal aid, said:

“We are surprised that the Government is proposing to make such changes without assessing their likely impact on spending from the public purse”.

This is another case of the Government not listening to the experts on legal aid. I think we are detecting a theme here.

Let us maybe have one more for luck. I commend the good work of organisations such as the Law Society on looking at alternative cost-saving measures. The Law Society proposed alternative savings worth £384 million—£34 million more than the Government are looking to cut—which would still protect all civil and family legal representation. The Law Society made its representations but was ignored. Then the Justice Committee recommended that the Government assess the merits of their proposals. Again, that recommendation was not listened to.

With these reforms the Conservatives are demonstrating their reckless handling of the British justice system. We already knew that we could not trust the Conservatives to protect the most vulnerable members of our society; we now know that we cannot trust them to uphold the founding principles of British justice either. The Government’s own impact assessment says that these reforms will increase costs, increase criminality and reduce social cohesion. With that testament, I am left wondering: what are the real costs of these reforms to legal aid?