Legal Aid

Lord Thomas of Gresford Excerpts

Monday 29th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I think the noble Lord gives the clue to his question. As he said very honestly in his response to the original Statement a couple of weeks ago, when in government, the Opposition were planning cuts in legal aid. Whenever one makes cuts, one has to draw the line somewhere, and the Opposition are rightly leaping to the defence of people on the wrong side of that line. We have made a decision in terms of making savings in the legal aid budget and we have done so in a way that we believe targets help to the most vulnerable.

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

My Lords, over the past year, more than 300 specialist citizens advice bureaux caseworkers have dealt with 40,000 welfare benefit cases, 60,000 debt cases, 9,000 housing cases and 3,000 employment cases. These specialist CAB caseworkers have been paid for using legal aid funding. Will this continue?

[Lord McNally]

No, my Lords, but what is clear is that the citizens advice bureaux provide advice. The problem that we faced—and the previous Administration faced it too—is that legal aid is being used to cover a wider range of advice and help which can be better funded and supported in other ways. My honourable friend Jonathan Djanogly is having meetings with representatives of Citizens Advice in the next week. We will be looking at ways of helping citizens advice bureaux and other non-legal providers of advice.