Legal Aid

Lord Faulks Excerpts

Thursday 11th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks]

My Lords, I begin by congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, on securing this debate on these recent and very controversial proposals. I declare an interest as a barrister regulated by the board she chairs. Although barristers are not naturally enthusiastic about regulation, the Bar Standards Board has won increasing respect from practitioners. I wish that I could say the same about the LSB, the super-regulator.

On 3 December 2012, I spoke in another debate initiated by the noble Baroness about what can be described only as the overregulation of the legal profession. I am glad to say that the Government have now announced that they have embarked on a wholesale review of legal service regulations following concerns over their complexity and the unnecessary burdens that they place on the sector. That debate clearly had some effect, and I hope that what is said today in your Lordships’ House will similarly cause the Government to think carefully.

I also declare an interest as a barrister who, while not often paid by legal aid, has experience of the way that the system works, has acted with legal aid and has sat as a recorder in the Crown Court. When proposals are born out of a need to save money, there is a significant risk that cuts will be made in rather a crude way and that the legal system as a whole will suffer long-term damage. These proposals have met with extraordinarily widespread criticism, much of it admittedly from interested parties. However, it seems to me—and I may be alone here in believing this, or almost alone—that there is some good sense at the heart of what the Government suggest in the introduction of PCT. Indeed, in March 2010, the previous Government produced a Green Paper that said, in relation to the restructuring and the delivery of the criminal defence services, among other things:

“Currently the criminal defence service is highly fragmented, with a large number of small suppliers and relatively few large suppliers … We believe that these market trends are not sustainable. Therefore we believe a future tendering process would ensure a more consolidated market, with a smaller number of more efficient suppliers, required to undertake the full range of the services we need”.

I therefore expect that the party opposite will applaud at least the concept that these proposals contain for the restructuring of legal services.

It is of course important that any restructuring does not result in a degradation of the quality of justice or its availability. I, like the noble Baroness, welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement that he will carry out a further consultation before finalising his plans. He has also said that he is looking again at the important question of choice of lawyer. I look forward to seeing precisely how he reflects this question of choice in any amended plans. I admit that I find it rather an elusive concept. Of course, it is desirable that anyone charged with an offence should be represented by lawyers in whom they have confidence. However, choice is unlikely to be an absolute matter. Indeed, I reject the suggestion that those charged with criminal offences are incapable of making informed choices. Some of them are quite experienced consumers. I can remember, on a couple of occasions when I was a young barrister, being introduced to a defendant by my instructing solicitor, to be met with the comment, “I do not want him”. That, I think, was an expression of freedom of choice in terms of representation.

Some of the personal attacks on the Lord Chancellor are highly regrettable. I also find the suggestion that lawyers in this area are overpaid and are, in effect, milking the system unfair and unsubstantiated. It is the habit of all Governments to publish rather misleading figures about earnings at the top end by practitioners in legal aid. These figures never tell the whole truth. The average earnings of a criminal practitioner are extremely modest. It is vital that we preserve the possibility of lawyers doing this important work. What is at stake is not just the standard of living of lawyers, which may be regarded by some as of secondary importance. It is much more important that we maintain the quality of justice for which this country rightly has an extremely high reputation.

Time does not permit me to examine the other proposals in detail. I can say, however, that the alarming increase in expenditure on legal aid by prisoners deserves careful examination. Some of this is explicable by the fallout from IPP sentences, abolished by this Government; I have considerable personal experience of the litigation arising from this. However, I understand that these cases, concerned with actual detention, will still receive legal aid. When it is for trivial disputes, I have some sympathy with the Government that they can properly be resolved by the alternative remedies. Similarly, judicial review, vital though the availability of this remedy is for constitutional reasons, does not mean that the availability of legal aid is not subject to some careful scrutiny. I found the evidence of the Lord Chancellor to the Justice Committee on this point persuasive.

I invite the Minister and others in the Ministry of Justice to look at the suggestions made by the Society of Conservative Lawyers for further savings in costs, which are not currently included in the proposals, in a recently published article on its website. I also ask the Government in due course to look at the inquiry that is to take place by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, of which I am a member, which is looking at the human rights elements in these proposed changes. I do not think that these changes warrant the wholesale condemnation that they have attracted. I ask the Secretary of State to proceed with very considerable caution. He needs to have preferably the profession and certainly the public with him on these changes if they are to be successful and preserve our system of justice.