Legal Aid and Civil Costs Reform

Lord Davies of Stamford Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

I thank my noble friend. His question gives me the opportunity to mention a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Bach, to which I did not respond. If not exactly ring-fenced, criminal legal aid is more protected because we take the view that when people are on trial for a criminal offence, it is important that they have access to justice and legal aid. However, that does not mean making a choice between criminal and civil cases, other than that, in terms of access to justice, a criminal charge is more serious.

The exceptional funding scheme will go wider than assistance for inquests, and it will indeed be available for those who may find themselves out of scope in these decisions but who have an exceptional case to make. I note what my noble friend says. We are well aware that we are making tough decisions that are needed to ensure access to public funding in cases that really require it and in protecting the most vulnerable in our society, as well as encouraging the efficient performance of our justice system. As we have made absolutely clear, those decisions are motivated partly by economic circumstances but also by a view that the legal aid system, as the noble Lord, Lord Bach, acknowledges, needs to be recalibrated and rebalanced, and that is what we have tried to do.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I am very sorry that the noble Lord just brushes aside the leaks in this case—

[Noble Lords]

Cross Benches.

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I associate myself with the comment of the noble Viscount, Lord Slim, about the noble Lord, Lord Bach, and his record in this area. Within the constraints in which we find ourselves, we certainly intend to make sure that our responsibility to service personnel and their families remains. Exceptional funding will remain available where there is a significant wider public interest in the applicant being represented at an inquest. Therefore, the families of service personnel will still be able to access legal aid funding for representation at inquests into their loved ones’ deaths. Rebuilding the military covenant is one of the top objectives of this Government, and the Ministry of Defence is currently considering how best to fulfil that covenant.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

My Lords, I am very sorry that the Minister just brushed aside the leaks in this case, as the Government always seem to do, by saying that it is just a matter of the world that we live in. It is a matter of the world that we live in only because it is tolerated. It is about time the Government adopted a slightly more rigorous approach to investigating and pursuing these things, as the Ministry of Defence did in the previous Parliament. I very much welcome the Government’s decision to propose that success fees should no longer be chargeable to defendants. It seems quite wrong to penalise defendants because of the funding structure that plaintiffs agree with their lawyers. Does the noble Lord agree that one of the great anomalies and problems of legal aid is that the costs incurred by a successful defendant cannot be claimed against the plaintiff? That is not only unfair, unjust and unbalanced between plaintiffs and defendants and legally aided plaintiffs and non-legally aided plaintiffs; it clearly reduces the financial disincentive to litigate marginal cases. Do the Government have any plans to deal with that anomaly?

[Lord McNally]

I think that I had better duck for cover in this case. I hear the point that the noble Lord makes. If we already have specific plans in this area, I shall write to him; if not, I shall make sure that that point is fed into the discussions that will be part of the review, which will go on for the next three months.

On investigating leaks, at the very beginning of my career I recall the Labour Party, under Harold Wilson, setting up a leaks inquiry and the first meeting of that inquiry being leaked to the Guardian. I was not dismissing the issue; I deplore it and, as I said at the beginning, I wish that we could get back to the rather old-fashioned idea that statements are made to Parliament and then the newspapers report them.