Legal Aid Reform

Debate between Karl Turner and Robert Neill

Thursday 27th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Karl Turner]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. As far as I know, it is very unusual for a partner in the firm to come out in the early hours of the morning. The important point is this: a solicitor who attends at a police station in the middle of the night is often dealing with extremely serious allegations—sometimes allegations of murder. I have been in that position on a number of occasions, representing clients who are alleged to have committed murder. The solicitor is there on his or her own, whereas the police have advice from the CPS and many officers to assist them. The solicitor is facing all that pressure and is not being paid properly, even under the current arrangements, for his or her expertise.

Of course we accept that in these straitened economic times, cuts have to be made to Departments across the board, but these plans are massively ill conceived. They will, in my respectful submission, irretrievably damage the criminal justice system. I will focus my remarks on price competitive tendering.

[Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

Can the hon. Gentleman help with this point, then? If irretrievable damage is done to the criminal justice system by any change to legal aid, why was it that the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), when Lord Chancellor, said:

“I hope that everyone…will accept that the growth of spending on legal aid seen in the early part of the decade and before is no longer sustainable”?

[Karl Turner]

It is very disappointing, but I suspect the hon. Gentleman has not read the consultation document.

I shall go on to deal with price competitive tendering, but first let me try to bust a myth. There seems to be a suggestion that the Labour Government were particularly generous to criminal lawyers. We were not. Criminal lawyers have sustained cuts to fees from successive Governments. The current proposals are far reaching and, if they go through, they will be horrifically damaging to the criminal justice system. PCT will inevitably lead to the market being dominated by the big multinationals—the usual suspects—G4S, Serco, Capita, and probably the new entrants to the market who have absolutely no experience, Stobart.

The plans are also unconstitutional. They dismiss the notion that an accused might have the right to choose a solicitor. The cavalier ignorance of the Lord Chancellor was exposed when he remarked:

“I don’t believe that most people who find themselves in our criminal justice system are great connoisseurs of legal skills.”

Not only does he dismiss everyone requiring legal advice as a criminal before they have even been charged or had a trial, but he apparently has the naiveté to think that those who come face to face with the criminal justice system are not capable of judging the competence of their own lawyers. This is the “too thick to pick” point. The notion is completely contrary to attitudes applied to, say, health services in this country or education, where choice is deemed essential.

The proposals look to implement yet another changing fee structure. Fees would be cut by 17.5%, on top of the 2011 reduction of 10%. Firms that successfully bid for PCT will have demonstrated that they can provide the services at the cheapest possible rate. This means that advice will probably be provided by less qualified people supervised, perhaps, by a single lawyer. The “stack it high, sell it cheap” mentality will reduce the criminal justice system to a sausage factory where the quantity of cases trumps the quality of the service provided every time.

The proposals specify this in paragraph 23, suggesting that there is no need to be concerned about the quality of provision because work shall not be

“above the acceptable level specified by the LAA”—

the Legal Aid Agency. The plans also perversely propose the same fee to be paid, whether the case is resolved by way of a guilty plea or contested at trial. There is strong concern that this will inevitably lead to undue pressure being put on a defendant to plead guilty when in fact they have a defence.

The proposals will change the sort of people coming into the profession. This is not a plea for so-called fat-cat lawyers, but as the eminent barrister John Cooper QC put it to me yesterday,

“This is recognition, before it’s too late, that if the proposals go through we will be complicit in excluding many young people from less advantaged backgrounds from becoming part of what can only be described as the National Health Service of the Law”.

I have only one minute left. The Lord Chancellor showed his ignorance and lack of understanding of the profession. He showed ignorance today by not attending this important debate, yet the civil servants Box is full to the gunwales. The Lord Chancellor should sit down and meet for the first time the chairman of the Criminal Bar Association, Michael Turner QC, and Bill Waddington, the chairman of the Criminal Law Solicitors Association, and discuss alternatives to these undemocratic, unconstitutional and worrying plans.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Neill]

I have given way twice, so my time is running out. I am sure that my hon. Friend will forgive me.

There might be different means by which the same objective can be achieved. It might be possible to have some form of panel system. It might be possible to have a different approach to police station work, where there is a strong argument for saying that firms need a guaranteed volume of work to make the business case sustainable, as opposed to the preparation of litigation and the ongoing court work in both the magistrates court and the Crown court. It is not unreasonable to say that choice has to be provided in the context of affordability. We must not be afraid to say that.

We must recognise that the number of people seeking work at the Bar and in the solicitors’ profession has grown greatly, frankly to an unsustainable level. The profession has to recognise that too many people are chasing a diminishing work load. The number of cases that go to court has reduced by broadly a third since I came to the Bar, whereas the independent Bar and the solicitors’ profession have become about three times as large. Something has to give. Let us sit down sensibly and find ways in which that can be achieved.

[Karl Turner]

rose—

[Robert Neill]

I have given way twice and am afraid that I cannot give way any more. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will find another opportunity to make his point.

We should not be sniffy about the development of alternative business models that might deliver the service properly. I recognise the points that have been made about accessibility in rural areas and about the particular types of expertise that may be needed. We could do more within the existing mechanisms to assist people with such issues.

I have come across such a situation in my constituency. Bromley council has set up an online platform in negotiation with reputable and well-established solicitors firms in the area that puts potential clients in contact with a solicitor, who provides the initial advice without any charge. There was difficulty in setting that up because, despite the willingness of the established solicitors firms to take part, the Solicitors Regulation Authority would not provide the necessary regulatory clearance. That is a needless bureaucratic obstacle to a practical solution to a genuine problem. That could sensibly be looked at and I hope the Minister will consider what might be done.

There are other ways in which we can make savings in criminal matters. My hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (Mr Bellingham) has suggested using the independent Bar more within the Crown Prosecution Service. We should look at whether more efficiencies can be made in that body more generally. Perhaps we should look at the operation of the new centralised magistrates courts service. Again, there might be scope for savings.

We spend markedly more on legal aid than any comparable common law jurisdiction. We spend about £39 per head in the UK, compared with about £20 per head in the Republic of Ireland, about £10 per head in Canada and about £13 per head in New Zealand. Those are jurisdictions with the same system and trial processes as we have, but they do it markedly cheaper. I do not believe that a reduction of 10%, which is not out of line with other reductions, is unacceptable.

Local Government Funding

Debate between Karl Turner and Robert Neill

Monday 6th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Robert Neill)]

This has been a robust debate and is none the worse for that perhaps. The subject is important and there are rightly strong views on it. Many Members have spoken and I shall start by apologising in advance if I do not manage to mention individually the speech of every one of the 25 Members who spoke. I hope, however, that I can pick up on certain themes.

There have been some considered and thoughtful speeches from hon. Members on both sides of the House. Issues of genuine concern have been raised by Members on both sides and I shall come back to those in a moment. I regret to say that, in some cases, however, the seriousness of the debate has not been served by the simplicity and shroud-waving and by some of the clichés that have been used as Members have injected more and more purple passages. That does not help in dealing with this serious matter, because the Government have never made any secret of the fact that the circumstances facing local authorities are difficult. We have been honest about that and it is to the credit of my hon. Friends from the Liberal Democrats that, when they came into government, they had the courage to recognise that the circumstances facing the country were grave. They deserve better service than the carping from Opposition Members who have not yet had the decency to admit their responsibility for the mess that the country is in or to come up with a constructive alternative.

Let me say to the hon. Member for St Helens North (Mr Watts) that he need have no fears about my health. I would fear, however, for the health of the nation’s economy if he were to be let loose, on the basis of what he and his right hon. and hon. Friends have done already.

It is against that background that it is necessary for us to take difficult and regrettable measures. I spent 16 years in local government, initially during the time when Denis Healey was going to the IMF and Jim Callaghan was telling local government that the party was over. I shall not brook any lessons from Opposition Members about the effects of Labour economic mismanagement on local authorities. Yet again, my hon. Friends and I find that we have to pick up the pieces. I accept that there are tough decisions, but they have come about because of the wreck and the train crash that the previous Government made of the economy.

Let me consider some of the propositions in the motion. There is a criticism of the percentages, but it starts from a basic error. It complains that

“councils will lose, on average, 27 per cent….compared to 11 per cent., on average, for Whitehall departments”

There is a sleight of hand in that, because the average figure includes the protected Departments. Unless Labour is going to tell us that it was not going to protect those Departments, the second line of its motion does not compare like with like. Frankly, it is intellectually questionable on that basis. The motion

“regrets the frontloading of reductions”,

but sadly, because of the extent of our economic inheritance, there should be a swift move to deal with deficit reduction. All people have to work together in that.

Ironically, we see from the Treasury proposals left behind by the previous Government that they intended to make cuts of 14% in the first year and 11% in the second year. That might be a type of front loading. I do not think we will take any lectures on that from Opposition Members either.

Let me turn to the question of the unexpected severity. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State pointed out that the previous Chancellor and the previous Prime Minister already made it clear that should Labour—unfortunately for the country—have been returned at the election, there would have been significant cuts. We have simply been honest about it and shouldered the burden that they neglected to take on board. We do not need to take any lessons there.

[Karl Turner]

Will the Minister give way?

[Robert Neill]

I shall, because the hon. Gentleman has been very vocal all night.

[Karl Turner]

It seems rather contradictory for the Minister to say on the one hand that we did not have a plan to reduce the deficit and on the other hand that we seemingly did. Which is it? Come on, Minister.

[Robert Neill]

The hon. Gentleman gets it right. Seemingly none of us knows what Labour’s plan was and the Leader of the Opposition does not know either. I assume that the hon. Gentleman will progress rapidly to the Front Bench, as he is as vague on policy as the leader of his party. If that is the best the hon. Gentleman can do by way of intervention, I suggest he saves his knees the trouble in future.

May I just—[Interruption.]