Criminal Bar: Funding

Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood Excerpts

Thursday 15th January 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (CB)]

My Lords, I begin by congratulating the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Aberavon, on securing this debate and opening it so skilfully. He was himself, of course, in his time a great ornament of the criminal Bar. He has recounted something of the history of the savage cuts that have already been made over the years in criminal legal aid funding and there is of course, following the election in May, to be another review of the fate of the criminal Bar. I suggest it would be catastrophic if, following this review and in the light of the Sir Bill Jeffrey report and other reports, further cuts were to be made. There is time today to make just four brief points.

First, of all the specialist Bars, the criminal Bar is the most important. Of course it does not earn for its practitioners, or even for the Exchequer, the huge sums earned, for example, by the commercial Bar, the companies Bar, the patent Bar or the revenue Bar; however, the work undertaken by the criminal Bar is the most valuable of all. The outcomes of commercial disputes largely result in book entries—the adjustment of balance sheets—but the administration of criminal justice goes to the very heart of the rule of law, and directly and immediately impacts on the day-to-day lives and liberty of all. I quote Geoffrey Cox QC MP in a debate more than four years ago:

“The efficient conduct of cases in the courts is the essential pivot around which revolves the entire administration of justice. Incompetence and poor quality in the representation of prosecution or defence will inevitably lead to the failure of justice, prolonged delays, aborted trials, appeals and much greater cost”.—[Official Report, Commons, 15/9/10; col. 245WH.]

It is all-important to assist the judiciary in its task of achieving justice. That is why the judiciary strongly traditionally supports a strong criminal Bar.

Secondly, the criminal Bar has for many years been the poor relation of the various specialist Bars. The effect of recent funding cuts is “ruinous”—I quote what a member of my old chambers said to me yesterday. Others have spoken of a crisis of confidence in the economic viability and the long-term future of the criminal Bar. Predictably, all this has had a devastating effect on the recruitment of real talent to that Bar. The number of pupillages has fallen, and all this is on top of the loss of student grants and the increasing levels of student debt. How today could one conscientiously encourage some able and ambitious young graduate to the criminal Bar? Rather, one has to advise them to steer clear of it and direct them instead to commercial or public law chambers or one of the other Bars.

Thirdly, even if financial considerations do not deflect some of the wealthier among the Bar’s potential recruits—those with money, trust-backed grants or family funds—assuredly they put off those who have no financial support and are burdened with heavy debt. The consequences for the Bar’s commendable long-standing efforts to promote diversity and social mobility need no emphasis. They are all too obvious.

Finally, the young criminal bar is the seed-corn for the next generation of experienced criminal Silks and justices. It is small wonder that in paragraph 9.11 of his report, Sir Bill Jeffrey stated that,

“concerns about the future ‘talent pipeline’ for criminal QCs and judges are not, in my view, fanciful”.

In the following paragraph, under the heading “How much does this matter?”, he expressed his conclusion. I shall not read that paragraph in full, although I hope that others may do so later in the debate. Put shortly it was, unsurprisingly, Sir Bill’s conclusion that it obviously matters a great deal. It is imperative that any future Government recognise that they should do nothing to further imperil the future of the criminal Bar, which is truly one of the great assets of our proud legal heritage.