Legal Aid

Lord Touhig Excerpts

Thursday 11th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Touhig]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, on securing this debate. I shall confine my remarks to the impact that proposals outlined in Transforming Legal Aid will have on victims of trafficking and domestic violence.

Under the proposals, civil legal aid will be available only to individuals who are lawfully resident in the United Kingdom at the time of their application and have been lawfully resident here for 12 months. At first sight this may seem perfectly reasonable but then look more closely and there are some pretty bad consequences. I am extremely concerned that no exemptions to this residence test are planned for either victims of human trafficking or for women who have entered the United Kingdom as the partner of someone settled here, and then experienced domestic violence at their husband’s hands. This is the more surprising considering that, in an Answer in the other place on 3 July, the Prime Minister described human trafficking as “modern-day slavery”. He added:

“We are looking at legislative options, and I will be chairing a committee across Government to look at what more can be done”.—[Official Report, Commons, 3/7/13; col. 920.]

I hope that Mr Cameron will look at this and perhaps read Hansard for today’s debate.

Legal aid for both of the groups that I have mentioned is explicitly protected under legislation passed only last year but would be removed in a large number of cases under the proposed system. This is despite a series of statements and publications by the Government giving reassurance to those of us who are concerned. Indeed, I find it hard to discern exactly what the Government’s position is, because they keep contradicting themselves.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, speaking in this House on 27 March last year at Third Reading of the LASPO Bill rightly acknowledged that, given their “particular vulnerabilities”, support for trafficking victims to resolve immigration matters should be available to them during,

“a period relevant to the experience of being trafficked”.—[Official Report, 27/3/12; col. 1291.]

The same noble and learned Lord said on March 7 2012:

“The ability to bring damages claims against former so-called employers is an important tool to secure reparations for victims and to punish their exploiters”,

and that successful claims,

“discourage those who seek to exploit people for financial gain”.—[Official Report, 7/3/12; col. 1889.]

He said that there was a risk of leaving some trafficking victims without necessary support if cases relied on exceptional funding. He admitted that the scheme was not sufficient to protect victims of trafficking.

However, just two weeks ago, the Justice Secretary, Mr Grayling, said in a letter to Helen O’Brien, the chief executive of Caritas Social Action Network:

“Individuals who do not meet the residence test would be entitled to apply for exceptional funding under the power set out in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act”.

I invite noble Lords to contrast that statement from Mr Grayling with the conclusions reached by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, on 7 March. He said:

“We had always anticipated that legal aid would have been available under the exceptional funding scheme for these damages claims, as was indicated by my noble friend Lady Hamwee, where such cases met the test for exceptional funding under Clause 9 of the Bill”.

However, he added:

“On reflection, we recognise the risk that in some cases this will not be sufficient”.—[Official Report, 7/3/12; col. 1889.]

Perhaps like me, noble Lords are at a loss to know quite what the Government really want to do.

After all, let us not forget that the LASPO Act includes equivalent provision for legal aid funding in immigration cases concerning anyone granted indefinite leave to remain as the partner of an individual settled in the United Kingdom whose relationship then permanently breaks down because they are the victim of domestic violence.

During the passage of the Act, the then Minister, Mr Jonathan Djanogly, emphasised the importance of this provision stating:

“There is a real risk that, without legal aid, people will stay trapped in abusive relationships out of fear of jeopardising their immigration status”.—[Official Report, Commons, Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill Committee, 19/7/11; col. 245.]

Since 2002, over 2,000 women have been granted indefinite leave to remain in the United Kingdom following the breakdown of a relationship with a violent partner. While this accounts for a comparatively small fraction of legal aid expenditure, it reflects the significant human cost that would be incurred were such recourse not available.

To be fair, the Government have demonstrated a strong commitment to tackling the horrors of human trafficking. They have also shown a clear determination to prevent and reduce domestic violence. On 24 April this year, Helen Grant, the Minister for Women, Equalities and Victims, told the Salvation Army trafficking conference that trafficking is.

“something that no civilised country should tolerate. It creates victims who are often some of the most vulnerable members of society”.

In the human trafficking strategy published by Theresa May the Home Secretary in 2011, the Government outlined the UK’s positive record in tackling trafficking and committed to a series of measures building upon this, including better care for victims.

The Home Office website setting out the Government’s policy on ending violence against women and girls states:

“We all must do much more to prevent violence against women and girls happening at all”.

It specifically highlights that,

“fewer than one in four people who suffer abuse at the hands of their partner—and only around one in 10 women who experience serious sexual assault—report it to the police”.

Those of us who are concerned about the victims of trafficking and the women victims of domestic violence in the circumstances that I have described have heard warm words from Ministers and read many encouraging statements, but I conclude by saying to the Minister that depriving victims of legal aid for immigration cases risks undermining steps to address domestic violence against vulnerable women and significantly exacerbating the problem of underreporting of these cases. I hope that he and the Government will think again about these proposals.