Legal Aid

Lord Bach Excerpts

Monday 29th November 2010 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Lord Bach]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have for the future of legal aid in the area of social welfare law.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)]

My Lords, on 15 November 2010 the Government published proposals for reform of legal aid, including social welfare law. We propose that legal aid be retained in the highest priority cases—in debt and housing when someone’s home is at immediate risk, for homelessness, and in cases involving serious disrepair. We will retain legal aid in community care cases. Under these proposals legal aid would no longer be routinely available in other social welfare law matters.

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his Answer. I accept that savings have to be made in the legal aid budget, but why, in the Green Paper, are the Government so ruthlessly targeting social welfare law, particularly during a recession? There is to be no legal aid for welfare benefit advice, none for education advice, none for employment advice, and precious little for housing and debt advice. Sixty-eight per cent of the legal help scheme is to be cut. Does the Minister not understand that appropriate legal advice, given early, can and does help solve multiple problems, changes lives, and prevents huge social costs later on? If the noble Lord’s party were in opposition today, it would, and he knows it, oppose these proposals with all its might. Why will it not do the same today?

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I think the noble Lord gives the clue to his question. As he said very honestly in his response to the original Statement a couple of weeks ago, when in government, the Opposition were planning cuts in legal aid. Whenever one makes cuts, one has to draw the line somewhere, and the Opposition are rightly leaping to the defence of people on the wrong side of that line. We have made a decision in terms of making savings in the legal aid budget and we have done so in a way that we believe targets help to the most vulnerable.