Queen’s Speech

Lord Beecham Excerpts

Wednesday 8th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, “Justice, justice thou shalt pursue” is a biblical exhortation which should be the hallmark of policy and practice in this critical area of government policy.

There is little evidence of it to be found in the Ministry of Justice’s contribution to government policy and its legislative programme, with the exception of sensible measures such as the Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Bill and the Sentencing (Pre-consolidation Amendments) Bill. There is no recognition of the impact on access to justice of the last nine years of coalition and Conservative government policy, nor any indication of a determination to tackle the dreadful conditions in our overcrowded and understaffed prisons in a country with among the highest incarceration rates in Europe and a dreadful level of violence which we are encountering regularly. On the contrary, the Government seem determined to promote longer sentencing and potentially counterproductive measures such as more hours of unpaid work of an undefined nature. Nothing appears to be happening in ensuring that in this area profit is not a key factor.

However, it is not just the custodial system that is found wanting. The Law Society, not noted for left-leaning tendencies, describes the justice system as being “at breaking point”, citing

“shortage of duty solicitors and independent experts, court closures, barriers to accessing legal aid, and crucial evidence not being disclosed in court until the last minute.”

It also describes the criminal justice system as being at breaking point. It is true that the Ministry of Justice’s budget for criminal justice is being increased, but this is largely devoted to providing new prisons and supporting the appointment of new police officers to fill the gap caused by cuts over the last few years. The probation service continues to be overstretched. The Law Society calls on the Government to ensure adequate funding across the whole criminal justice system, not just a few parts of it. This will include the need to ensure the availability of legal representation by increasing fees and updating the means test to increase it in line with inflation since 2010, given that the present level falls well behind.

Similarly, the society invokes the need to facilitate access to civil justice, so badly affected by LASPO, which currently leaves many people on very low incomes ineligible for legal aid. It also draws attention to other failings of the present system, including the need to restore legal aid for early advice in housing and family law. Here, at least, and at last, there will be a belated piloting of an advice scheme in relation to housing law. We have to see the extent to which effective changes are made. As I pointed out several times in earlier debates, there are legal deserts in this important area, where 37% of the population live in local authority areas with no legal providers for housing law cases, in particular at a time when there are many problems in the private rented sector.

The society raises further issues, including concerns about the apparent failure to proceed with the court modernisation programme embodied in the Courts and Tribunals (Online Procedure) Bill, which passed through your Lordships’ House and appears to have since disappeared. Since 2010, the Ministry of Justice budget has been cut by 40%. This translates to applications for employment tribunals collapsing, legal advice services reducing from 3,266 in 2006 to less than 1,500 in 2015, and by 2017 there was a reduction in legal aid providers by 20%—presumably by now there has been an even greater reduction. Moreover, many courts have been closed, others are in poor repair, videolinks are sparse, and waiting areas sometimes fail to provide separate facilities for parties in domestic abuse cases.

One correspondent who works in the public children’s law sector sees some of the most vulnerable children in society and reports seeing,

“a court system where judges are struggling to cope with high numbers of litigants in person—some very vulnerable people—trying desperately to navigate a system so that they can either protect their child, see their child or respond to serious allegations against them … it is not unusual to see a case where there have been 3, 4, 5 social workers in the space of one year”,

with grandmothers offering to look after children and then delays of months, even years, to obtain appropriate housing.

This underlines the need not just to ensure that the legal system and proper advice and representation are accessible but that other critically important services are properly funded and available to assist both the parties and the courts. What steps will the department take to work with other departments, for example, local government and education, to contribute to the resolution of such pressing problems?