Legal Aid

Lord Pannick Excerpts

Monday 3rd June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, when I first answered Questions on legal aid more than three years ago, the first point I made was that legal aid was a system devised to help the poorest and most vulnerable in our society. It follows that if you cut legal aid, those are the sections of society that are likely to be affected. Economic circumstances have forced cuts on my department and we are trying to make the reforms to legal aid as focused and effective as possible, while still protecting the vulnerable in our society.

[Lord Pannick]

My Lords, I declare an interest as someone regulated by the noble Baroness, Lady Deech. Does the Minister share the widespread concern that the Government’s proposal to introduce competitive tendering for criminal legal aid services will remove choice for the consumer, remove the incentive for the provider to maintain quality and inevitably result in the destruction of hundreds of small to medium-sized solicitors businesses up and down the country?

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I am greatly reassured that somebody is regulating the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. Again, in response to this consultation, we have heard various parts of the legal profession harping on about the worst-case scenario, which we simply do not accept. We are in consultation and have put forward proposals about legal aid contracts. However, the legal professions are facing a number of changes, irrespective of what we are proposing on legal aid—a point I have made before from the Dispatch Box—and they will have to adjust to the new circumstances if they are going to survive. We are consulting with the Law Society and Bar Council, and with other bodies and individuals. We are listening and we hope to get a solution that will reflect what the Government can afford to pay on legal aid at the moment but that will also leave us with the protections for our legal aid system that many of us have taken pride in.