Legal Aid

Lord Bach Excerpts

Wednesday 26th June 2013 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Bach]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether, as a result of their plans to reform legal aid, defendants will be able to choose their own lawyer; and, if not, why not.

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

My Lords, the reasoning behind the proposed changes is that they will ensure that contract holders have enough certainty about work volumes so that efficiencies and economies of scale are achievable. However, we are carefully considering the consultation responses to this proposal.

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his Answer and confess to being somewhat—a little—encouraged by it. The choice of lawyer is an essential part of our criminal justice system, as of course is the presumption of innocence. Does the Minister agree with his right honourable friend the Lord Chancellor’s justification of the proposal to abolish choice of lawyer, given in a recent interview in the Law Society Gazette? That seemed to be based on the absurd principle of “too thick to pick”. Or, does he agree with his right honourable friend the Deputy Prime Minister and leader of his own party, who is quoted as saying last weekend that it would be “perverse” to go ahead with this proposal? He cannot agree with both. What is the Government’s position?

[Lord McNally]

The Government’s position is that we put forward a model for competition, as proposed in our transformed legal aid consultation. That said that the client would generally have no choice in the provider allocated to them but that, in exceptional circumstances, a client might be permitted to change their provider. We put that matter out for consultation. As I indicated in my Answer, we are now considering the responses to the consultation and will come forward with further proposals.