Social Welfare Law

Lord Thomas of Gresford Excerpts

Tuesday 25th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Low, both on securing this debate but, more importantly, on the outstanding report that he and his commissioners have produced.

Many of us in this House, not least the noble Lord, Lord Bach, who has been at the forefront of the argument, warned the Government about the deficit that would arise through the cuts arising out of LASPO. In the debate instituted by the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, in December 2011, I asked,

“where is the funding for the specialist advisers of the CAB”,

and advice centres,

“going to come from when those legal aid contracts disappear?”.—[Official Report, 8/12/11; col. 909.]

The noble Lord, Lord Low, and his commissioners have been ingenious in their recommendations in seeking out funding streams from a number of sources. I fully support the concept outlined in the report that there should be a national strategy for advice and legal support in England, and hope that the current Welsh Labour Government will develop a similar strategy in Wales, although their general lack of vision does not make me too optimistic.

Noble Lords will also recall that we on these Benches warned the Government that their cutbacks in the LASPO Bill would result in advice deserts. My noble friend Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, who spoke in the debate of the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, warned that,

“the present proposals risk creating advice and representation deserts where no appropriate legal advice or representation is available. This the Government have recognised, but the proposals also risk creating specialism deserts. The danger of advice deserts could be addressed by increasing the number of providers in more sparsely populated areas. The specialism issue is more difficult”.—[Official Report, 11/7/13; col. 453.]

In that context I will draw your Lordships’ attention to Wales. I am impressed that a member of the commission was Mr Bob Chapman, a member of the committee of the Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council in Wales and chair of the trustee board of the Swansea Neath Port Talbot Citizens Advice Bureau. It is clear from reading the report that Welsh issues have not been overlooked.

The report points out that the Independent Advice Providers Forum has collected evidence that £4.1 million-worth of cuts in Wales kicked in from April 2013, £2.4 million of which were from the loss of legal aid contracts, and the rest from reductions in Welsh government, local authority, European and other funding from corporate and charitable sources. In its place the Advice Services Transition Fund intends to put just over £1 million back into advice services in Wales. I fear that even that dire conclusion may be too optimistic.

On this very day, Powys County Council is meeting to consider its budget. It will be considering the recommendation of its cabinet to cut funding to citizens advice bureaux throughout the county. At first the cabinet said that it would be cut entirely, but last week it compromised. The proposal that is being debated today is to cut funding for the CAB by half in the current year and reduce it to zero in the following year. The chairman of the trustees of the Powys CAB, Chris Mann, says of this:

“Without core funding from the County Council, Powys CAB will lose all other sources of grants. These pay specialist and professional advisers on debt, welfare benefits, employment and housing and allow our volunteers to assist clients on a range of pressing social issues”.

The other sources of grants to which Mr Mann refers are contracts worth some £336,000 for the provision of essential services to the residents of Powys. Without core funding from the council, the highly skilled paid staff will lose their jobs, and the volunteers, who are so vital to the CAB, will be unable to continue.

The recent history is that in 2013 Powys CAB dealt with 21,000 advice issues, assisted more than 6,000 clients and secured £2.2 million in welfare benefit income for its clients. As Mr Mann points out, this money does not disappear into the air but is spent locally and supports the local community. It is true that the council has a small welfare rights unit but it cannot possibly cope with the work level if the CAB has to close. This is a large area of Wales, where poverty and rural deprivation are endemic. It is precisely the sort of area of desert that we foresaw when we were discussing the LASPO Bill. That is only one example, but it is significant in this context that, according to the CAB, £71 million—43.8% of its funding as a whole in 2012-13—came from local government. In the current year, it expects the percentage to increase to 46.2% from local government, as funding from legal aid drops from £21 million to just £6.5 million. This is a tragedy that is going to happen in vast areas of the country.

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the commission’s report is that it does not seek to wind the clock back to the pre-LASPO position but recognises realities. Suggested funders include the Money Advice Service, the Department for Work and Pensions, the NHS, local government, trusts and foundations, as well as the legal profession through pro bono and dormant funds. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Bach, that all political parties, in fashioning their manifestos for a future Parliament, should take all the commission’s recommendations on board.

Finally, I very much look forward to the contribution of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Peterborough. He spent eight years as Archdeacon of Chester, so I can greet him almost as a neighbour, even though he was on the wrong side of the border. I also welcome him as a graduate of Peterhouse in Cambridge to join our hardcore Petrean group in the House of Lords, with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, and others. I am sure that he will add lustre to our deliberations.