Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012

Lord Garnier Excerpts

Thursday 7th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

I am obliged to the noble Lord. Looking more generally at advice and assistance, we want and propose to look at how we can engage with people at a very early stage, so that we can evaluate their legal problems—and, indeed, sometimes problems that are not entirely legal but that lead on to legal issues if not addressed quickly enough.

In the specific area of social welfare law, we will seek pilots that evaluate various technological solutions and look at the cost benefits of trying to approach matters in that way. I mentioned earlier the idea of web-based material and the development we have seen in digital access to legal advice. For example, we have already instituted such digital access in the areas of uncontested divorce and debt, so that people can, without the need for legal advice, be guided through what should be a relatively straightforward process for the resolution of certain legal issues.

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, in thanking my noble and learned friend the Minister for repeating the Lord Chancellor’s Statement, I declare an interest as a member of the private Bar, albeit I do not do any legal aid work.

The Minister said he was disappointed by the reaction of the noble Baroness and the noble Lord to the Lord Chancellor’s Statement. I was the Opposition spokesman in the Lord Chancellor’s Department from 1997 to 1998, and then variously shadow Attorney-General throughout the Blair and Brown Governments. I can assure my noble and learned friend that I made exactly the same sort of speeches as the two opposition Peers made just now. This is a continuing and almost intractable problem, and it is of course a question of judgment and priorities when resources are scarce. But there is much to commend in what my noble and learned friend has said, albeit I would like to see plenty more done.

I welcome the £3 million support for litigants in person. However, it is fair to say—I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Marks—that the increasing presence in our courts of litigants in person not only makes our court system more sclerotic but feeds into the lessening of morale in the judiciary. Although not immediately germane to the post-implementation review, that is a factor that needs to be thought of within and outside its scope.

Finally, and most gently, I urge my noble and learned friend to see whether the Secretary of State and the Treasury can do something more—I know they have been doing some things—to assist in the funding of the criminal legal aid system. If there is one aspect of the criminal justice system that most worries me, it is the underremuneration of criminal legal aid lawyers, both solicitors and barristers.

I daresay that many will say, “Here’s one fat lawyer seeking to protect other fat lawyers”, but it really is not like that. I urge my noble and learned friend to do what he can to enhance the remuneration of legal aid lawyers in the criminal justice system. They have taken a pay cut of 10% or 20% over the last few years. Until that is recovered, our criminal justice system will be much hampered and hindered.

[Lord Keen of Elie]

My Lords, we recognise the importance of a viable, properly trained and effective criminal Bar in order to maintain suitable access to justice for all. That is demanding in the present circumstances. Quite recently, as my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier will know, we have increased the level of fees for criminal justice work. That was done in discussion with the Bar Council in order that it could be suitably targeted to the areas where it was most needed. But I will not suggest that no more needs to be done. I quite understand the observations made about the need to maintain a viable, effective criminal Bar in that respect.

We are conscious of the issue of litigants in person, particularly of the need to avoid the simple matter of cost transferring: in other words, you relieve one area of costs by reducing legal aid provision only to find that you increase costs elsewhere because of the demands on the court system and the judiciary, because with an increasing number of litigants in person, we may find that court hearings take longer and are more demanding. We are conscious of that when looking at this overall. I reiterate that legal aid provision as such is only one aspect of a wider ecosystem that is designed to ensure access to justice.