Citizens Advice Bureaux

Lord Bach Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Boateng on securing this important debate. As the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, said, the debate is extremely timely for a number of reasons. We have had some excellent speeches which I know the Minister will have listened to with care.

For my own part, I cannot help feeling a little sorry for the Minister tonight. She has to answer this debate although her department has at least tried in some ways to assist the CAB at this difficult time, whereas the Ministry of Justice has, frankly, done the exact opposite. In their legal aid Bill proposals, the Government are planning, as we have heard, to legislate to stop CABs performing a crucial part of their work, namely to give early, specialist legal advice to those who need it. However, it is the Minister who will have to answer this debate on behalf of the Government.

The likely effects of the MoJ proposals are, first and most importantly, that people will not get the advice that they need and deserve. Secondly, some CABs will actually have to close down and others will be put under severe pressure. Thirdly, as the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, said, up to 500 specialist staff who are currently employed will either have to find other jobs or be made redundant, with costs attached. What a crazy, nonsensical policy it must be if those are the likely effects of that part of the Bill coming into effect.

Some 20 years ago, it was in my honour to be chairman for a three-year period of a small local CAB, Lutterworth and District. Both then and right through the intervening years, one fact has remained constant—CABs are hugely popular. They are, as we have heard, both trusted and respected, and they are clearly needed by the British people. Any organisation that can give help in one year to more than 2 million people with more than 7 million problems, as was the case in 2010-11, is bound to be popular and respected. However, it is much more than that. It is a feeling that part of what makes it great to be British and us proud of our way of life is that we live in a society where there are efficient and successful institutions that provide help to people in dealing with the law of everyday life—with the law-thick world that the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, talked about, dealing with the bureaucracy, delays and legal wrongs that exist in a complex modern society. There are other fine organisations too—law centres, advice centres, many charities, and voluntary and religious organisations as well—but in my view, none has a greater resonance with the British people than the CAB movement.

We all agree that our economic situation is such that savings have to be made. Legal aid must take its share too. However, to say that does not excuse us from looking at where those cuts or savings have to be made. We live at a time—as we have heard, not least from the right reverend Prelate—of falling living standards and the risk of more unemployment; a time, in short, when ordinary people are more greatly in debt and there is greater evidence of renting rather than home owning. Ordinary people more than ever need the help that CABs, along with other organisations, can deliver. People need early legal advice and access to justice more than ever. However, this is precisely the time when the Government have chosen to cut 10 per cent off the very low fees paid for the social welfare law cases which CABs do. They intend to make much greater cuts in the Bill going through this House at the moment. The proposals will mean that the legal aid income of CABs will be reduced from £28.4 million this year to something like £5.4 million once the proposals are in effect. That is a massive difference in the amount of money going to CABs and the number of cases that CABs can take on.

At the moment, 500 CAB special advisers deal each year with over 52,500 welfare benefit cases or problems, over 63,000 debt problems, nearly 16,000 housing problems and up to 3.3 million employment problems. With these massive cuts, they will hardly be able to touch anywhere near those figures. Even if all this was justified and had to be done—we argue that it is certainly immoral and an attack on access to justice—it would still be an absurd policy for the very reason that noble Lords have already stated: it is bound to cost much more than the savings which the MoJ might make. People who cannot get early help will of course find that, in some cases, their problems get worse. The noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, said that a moment ago. The state will have to come in at some stage—there will be re-housing, extra benefits and the state will have to pick up the pieces. We will all have to pick up the pieces. While the MoJ may save a few million quid, the rest of us will be spending much more.

It is good that there is a review, which my noble friend mentioned. However, I have to say that early reports of it are not encouraging and I ask the Minister if she will tell us a bit about it. As I understand it, the review is the modern equivalent of what used to be described as two men and a dog—in this case, two civil servants doing the review on their own. It has to finish by the end of January, which seems remarkably quick. I am delighted that they have been to Coventry Law Centre, which works very closely with the CAB in that great city. But is this a serious review that is really going to look at the future of this crucial part of our justice system?

The CABs would ask us to say that their clients, who are infinitely more important than anybody else, will be the most important people to suffer. But the Citizens Advice Bureaux themselves will suffer; they will have to make people redundant, including a lot of special advisers who will have to make up the 15 per cent shortfall that taking away legal aid from them will mean and who will no longer be viable.

If CABs fail or become half as useful as they are at present, we as a country fail too. What sort of country do you become if the poor and vulnerable—in fact, if any citizen—cannot get help for their legal problems? We are at great risk of allowing that to happen, as it were, quietly, so before we know where we are that is the kind of country we are.