Criminal Defence Service (Very High Cost Cases) (Funding) Order 2013

Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood Excerpts

Wednesday 11th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I do not think I have any relevant disclosures to make. I have not had a private client for some 34 years since I followed the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, as Treasury Counsel, and I shall never have another.

This very afternoon, in answer to a Question about our trade prospects with China, the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Livingston, said:

“The UK legal sector is a great strength … the rule of law and support from professional services are very strong. I will certainly seek to champion the legal sector going forward”.

I believe that I quote him accurately. I just wish that he would share his views and commitment with the Lord Chancellor.

For many years the criminal Bar has been the poor relation of the various specialist Bars. Over the past decade it has already suffered a series of cuts in public funding. Of course it does not earn for the Exchequer the riches that, for example, the commercial Bar earns when acting, very often on both sides of the litigation, in commercial disputes. However, I argue that the work undertaken by the criminal Bar is altogether more important than most commercial work. Most commercial cases result ultimately just in the adjustment of companies’ balance sheets and book entries; they rarely affect the quality of people’s lives. The outcome of criminal cases, by contrast, is generally critical to real people; usually their very liberty is at stake. More than this, the strength of the rule of law, and indeed public respect for it, depends above all else on the proper administration of the criminal justice system.

Very high cost cases, the subject of the swingeing further cut in fees under consideration here, are generally the most demanding of all the cases in the criminal calendar, as the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, has explained, and usually, and appropriately, they are undertaken by the elite of the criminal Bar. There already exist few financial attractions for those contemplating practice, or indeed already practising, in crime at the Bar. If you impose these additional cuts, that elite will fall away.

The Attorney-General himself is said to have acknowledged at a recent Bar conference that he no longer expected people of excellence to come to the criminal Bar. Consider, if you will, the effect of that upon the future quality of those who practise at the very heart of the criminal justice system. Consider its impact on recruitment, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, has made plain. Consider its impact on the rule of law, and consider its inevitable consequences in terms of the future judiciary. Where shall we find the next generation of criminal judges? What indeed about the present position, as described by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, with current cases going hopelessly awry because, understandably, Counsel are on occasion declining to continue with cases with their fees savagely and retrospectively cut?

Of course I recognise that the Ministry of Justice has many calls upon its budget and that we live in harsh economic times, but I just cannot accept that these difficulties justify cuts so inevitably and gravely damaging to the criminal Bar, to the administration of justice and to the very rule of law. If drastic economies in the legal aid budget are required, and if they must be found in relation to the kind of cases in question here, better far to my mind that the department revisit a measure long ago suggested but, regrettably, hitherto rejected: the ending of the automatic right to jury trial in complex and protracted fraud cases. Indeed, it is my own clear opinion that not merely would this save countless millions of pounds of legal aid funds, it would also make for better justice.

That, of course, must be for another day. In the mean time, let us surely strive to safeguard rather than destroy the quality of the existing criminal Bar. Let us annul, not merely postpone, this order and these regulations. I, too, support the Motion.

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, along with others, I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, for tabling these Motions so that we can debate these important measures. I should make it clear that I have never practised at the English Bar and never sat in an English court. My experience has been of practice, both civil and criminal, north of the border. However, although I have never sat in an English court, I have sat in a United Kingdom court, have had some experience of dealing with criminal cases and think that I can speak with some authority in support of the points which have been made so effectively by the noble and learned Lords, Lord Woolf and Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood.

A cut of 30% on fees previously set by the Government surely must be regarded in the present financial climate as severe. I appreciate, of course, that the Minister and those for whom he speaks in this House have very little room for manoeuvre, given the cuts that already have to be made across the entire department. However, it would help if the Minister in his reply were able to put these two measures into their overall context. As I understand it, we are dealing here with cases that take a very long time and provide the advocate with the benefit of continuity of employment throughout a long period. As has been pointed out, these are complex cases which require unusual amounts of work outside the court room and are, in comparison with rates elsewhere in the system, better paid. I could therefore perhaps understand it if the strategy behind these measures was to reduce the cost of legal aid at this level, so as to keep any reduction at the lower levels, with which we are not concerned this evening, to an absolute minimum—or even to preserve the existing position at the lower levels. After all, it is at the bottom of the scale that there is real hardship. One hears not infrequently that the costs of travel and other overheads exceed the amounts payable as fees to the advocate. If there is any margin over that, it is often very small. I would be grateful if the Minister would say whether this is what the Government have in mind, and give us an assurance that there is no question of cuts of this dimension being made elsewhere across the system. That would be some reassurance to those who are deeply concerned about what the Government have in mind in the overall planning.

I will direct my remarks to the amendment set out in regulation 3(5) of the Criminal Legal Aid (Remuneration) (Amendment) Regulations 2013, as the provision which it seeks to insert affects the advocate’s freedom of contract. The standard terms already provide for their amendment within the terms of the contract. There is a contractual power to do this, but it is not entirely unqualified; this is not the place to debate how extensive that power is. However, when it comes to altering the terms for payment, I suggest that it is a question of degree. The stage may be reached when the amendment proposed, purportedly within the contract, is so great that it cannot be altered without the advocate’s agreement. In that situation, if agreement is not reached, the advocate would have a right to terminate the contract.

That leads me to consider what the effect would be if the amendment goes through. As I understand it, it would tie the advocate who agrees to this form of contract to the rates set out in Schedule 6. That being so, those rates can then be amended by a further order without the need for the advocate’s agreement. There is no need to alter the contract: what one does is to look at the schedule and alter the schedule by a further order. Once the advocate is tied in to such a contract, he or she has no escape from it, however much the reduction in the rates may be. As there is every prospect, if one is realistic, that the cuts now proposed will not be the last, the stage could be reached when the rates will become wholly uneconomic—indeed, some may say that this stage has already been reached. That amendment is a profoundly unattractive change in the existing arrangement. I do not understand why it is there and I suggest that the Government are taking a great risk by proceeding along these lines.

Members of the Bar, after all, are not civil servants. One of the strengths of the Bar, vital in our modern democratic society, is the independence of each one of its members from each other and from anyone else. That is an essential part of the system, which lies at the centre of maintaining the rule of law, which we all believe in. One of the characteristics of their independence is that advocates cannot be forced to accept terms to which they have not agreed or which they find unattractive. That leads directly to the consequences—to which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, drew our attention —which could be very far reaching and very damaging. Those already engaged in work of this kind might be well advised to withdraw from their contracts, lest they be sucked into an ever increasing pattern of cuts. There are many who might be attracted to this kind of work in other circumstances who would not wish to subject themselves to the reformed contract where they are subject to change without any further amendment of the contract itself.

I therefore have this further question for the Minister: what assurance can he give to those who may be willing to accept employment on these amended terms as to what the future holds for them? This is very relevant to the issue of recruitment. Schedule 6, as I have suggested, is open to further amendment. Are we to expect further cuts in these rates next year or is it proposed to do so within the life of this Parliament? If so, what further opportunity will there be—indeed what opportunity will there be at all—for consultation before any further amendments are proposed? What opportunity will there be for an advocate to withdraw if he decides that the rates that are then proposed are so completely unattractive that he is not prepared to carry on with that work? These are questions that all those engaged in this kind of work would wish to be answered and I hope very much that the Minister will be able to do so.

Lastly, on the point raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, about jury trials, I come from Scotland where, as it happens, there is no right to a jury trial. It is up to the prosecutor to decide whether the offence should be tried by a judge alone in the sheriff court, with a sheriff and a jury, or in the High Court with a jury. The length of sentence is affected by that decision, but there is no reason why a case of very considerable complexity should not be tried before a single sheriff. The accused has no right to object to that. It raises the issue as to whether there is not considerable force in the point of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, that we are reaching the stage where a jury trial in some of these cases may need to be reconsidered.