Public Legal Education

Maria Miller Excerpts

Tuesday 15th May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard; I am not entirely sure that I have done so before. It is wonderful to see you in the Chair today.

I thank my geographical neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena), for calling the debate, because it has given me, like my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes), an opportunity to look more closely at the work that the Solicitor General has been driving forward in this sphere. I shall speak particularly from the experience that I have had over recent years chairing the Women and Equalities Committee, which has given me an insight into things that I would like to draw on today. Of course, with the Solicitor General in his place, I pay tribute to my right hon. and learned Friend—[Interruption.] My hon. and learned Friend—soon to be right hon., I am sure. I pay tribute to him for the work that he has done in this area. As a solicitor, he might be forgiven for thinking that all of us know about these things. He has spent years—[Interruption.] Sorry, he is a barrister. Apologies; I will get into trouble with the Solicitor General! He has spent years honing his craft and knowing everything there is to know about the law. Then there are mere mortals, such as my hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire and me, who have not had that opportunity, although we did have the opportunity to go to the same wonderful university, the London School of Economics; that is something that we share.

Law shapes our lives. We know here, in the seat of democracy, that laws are an important part of the fabric of British society. We also know that the rule of law is integral to the way in which the British system of democracy works. We need look no further than north Hampshire to see the different ways in which we can make the rule of law work to underpin a better understanding of law are working in our community courts. We can look at the peer courts that have been set up. In those, young people sit and look themselves at community cases involving people of their own age, so that they can gain a better understanding of how the legal system works. We should applaud that and certainly applaud the Hampshire community court for pressing forward with it and rolling it out to ensure that young people understand that laws are not something that sits on a dusty shelf, but are put into practice through our courts and the rule of law.

The other critical part of the law is the political will to ensure that laws have the intended effect. Having been a Minister and been privileged enough to take laws through this place, I know only too well how they can sometimes not have the impact that we want them to have. One law that I believe has had a significant impact, although it probably still needs to go further, is the Equality Act 2010. It has had a significant impact, but we need to do much more to ensure that it has the political effect that was intended at the time. I think this is where public legal education can come into play.

I note the admirable words of my hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire, who talked about the importance of young people understanding the law: it should be part of the national curriculum and we should embed an understanding of the rule of law, hopefully to ensure that people can be good and upstanding citizens, who live their lives within the law. I gently suggest that that needs to go further and embrace those of us who are older, too. The lack of understanding, particularly of equality rights and our equality laws, is quite alarming. I will give a few instances where public legal education can focus in the future.

The first issue is maternity discrimination. Every year, tens of thousands of women feel that they have no choice but to leave their job because of the way in which they are treated in the workplace when they are pregnant or have new children. The Women and Equalities Committee, which I chair, has done an excellent report on maternity discrimination and has proposed some persuasive ways in which we could deal with this, including adopting a model that is in place in Germany, where women are not allowed to be made redundant when they are pregnant or have had small children. I hope the Government will eventually warm to that. As we will perhaps have a shortage of labour in future, we need to ensure that every single person in this country is able to play their part and not be excluded from the workplace for unlawful reasons. Few women understand maternity discrimination; they do not realise that what they might be enduring is maternity discrimination. I hope that the hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General can talk a bit about some of the work—I believe that his office or the Legal Education Forum may be involved in it—to help women to understand their maternity rights. I think it is critical that any programme he undertakes in future should try to include these equality issues. Perhaps his panel will take some evidence from or listen to some of the organisations that are dealing with these particular issues of equality discrimination.

Secondly, I will briefly draw on some of the issues behind the #MeToo campaign. Again, demonstrating an absolute ignorance of the law, people have perhaps been coerced into signing severance agreements that include gagging agreements—we call them lots of different things and I get into all sorts of trouble for calling them non-disclosure agreements, but we will call them gagging clauses—to stop people speaking out against wrongdoing. The Solicitor General, who is a learned gentleman, knows that these things are completely unenforceable, but the average person, such as me or perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire, would not be in that position and may believe that draconian measures to keep us quiet are entirely lawful. If the Solicitor General considered how he might use his excellent education programme to look into this further, he would be doing this country a great service indeed.

I could draw on many other areas in equality law, where the lack of understanding is hampering the original intention of the law. Hate crime, disability discrimination, maternity discrimination, which I have discussed, and tackling sexual harassment—the list goes on. I suggest to the Solicitor General that he look at the list of reports that the Women and Equalities Committee has published to see where his topics might lie, because this is a theme that comes up time and time again. I believe that the Equality Act 2010 needs some significant reform to make it work properly, but we also need people to understand it. That is where his programme of legal education comes in.

I wholeheartedly welcome this debate, the concept of public legal education and the excellent work that the Solicitor General is doing. Will he explain how what he is doing sits alongside the role of regulators, such as the Solicitors Regulation Authority, which has a statutory duty to promote the public understanding of citizens’ legal rights and duties? We recently had an opportunity to hear from the Solicitors Regulation Authority in one of our Select Committee hearings. I hope that the SRA will look more closely at this area in the future, particularly given the problems that many people are having with the way in which their employers may be using the law, which is not always as transparent as it should be. Many laws require people to know that they exist before they can come into effect, nowhere more so than when it comes to equality rights. I applaud my hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire for bringing this issue to the attention of the House. I will listen carefully to the Solicitor General’s response, to hear whether he feels there is more he could do when it comes to the understanding of equality law as well.

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[Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena) on securing this important debate. I am fortunate indeed to have been surrounded by the law for the past 30 years, from studying it as a 16-year-old for A-level and going on to study at degree level to becoming a barrister and spending 18 years as a lawyer, and then in the past three years trying to help make the law in this place. In a way, this debate is about how we can help young people ensure that they never have to come across somebody like me. I believe absolutely passionately that young people should be put in a position where they can understand rights and wrongs, rights and responsibilities and the way to settle disputes without the need for them to escalate. That is why I am passionate about the concept of public legal education in our schools. I feel to a certain extent that we are almost there, and this is the bit I want to reference with respect to the Minister.

A year or so ago, I served on the Children and Social Work Bill Committee, and a big discussion was held on personal, social and health and economic education. It came up in a narrow fashion because the discussion was about sex and relationship education and whether that should be a compulsory curriculum subject. In my mind, there was a great opportunity to go broader than that to teach our young people something wider than the citizenship curriculum subject that we have at the moment.

Citizenship is a hugely important subject that covers the rule of law, the ability to articulate debate, volunteering, and how to plan one’s life in future, but it could be so much more, and public legal education could easily fold into that. Although it has been confirmed for primary schools that compulsory relationship education will come in—and for secondary schools, sex and relationship education—by September 2019, I think we are somewhat in the dark as to what will occur to the concept of PSHE on a wider basis. I would like to see PSHE established on a compulsory footing, but I would also want to make sure that we do not overload our schools with yet another subject in the curriculum.

[Mrs Miller]

My hon. Friend is making an extremely important speech. The law is already there; the Secretary of State has put in place a law that can make PSHE compulsory. It just needs to be enacted. I hope my hon. Friend welcomes that, because the Government have actually done something that had been not done for 17 years by Governments of successive colours.

[Huw Merriman]

It will be down to the Minister to confirm this, but my understanding is that although there has been some form of commitment—we are absolutely clear as to what has been brought in for primaries and secondaries with regard to compulsory relationship education—so far that clarity has not been given for the wider PSHE. I look to the Minister to confirm that, but my research, certainly from February, tells me that that was indeed the case, and that is the commitment I want to see from the Government.

On the current challenges for teachers, I have long taken the view that while it is essential to get the basics of English and maths right in our primary schools—we have known for many years that they have failed in that regard—I feel that there is a strong emphasis on those two subjects and they lead to the exclusion in some schools or a lack of attention in others regarding the wider curriculum subjects that will give our young children and pupils the ability to navigate their way through the challenges of life, which is as essential as giving them the basics in English and maths.

I will not delay any further. I know that the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), who speaks with great knowledge on this matter, has had to cross out part of her speech, so I hope she will get some time back. I look forward to hearing from the Minister as to whether PSHE will be introduced and whether that gives us a golden opportunity to advance public legal education within that sphere.

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[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard, and I draw attention to my relevant entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I am a non-practising barrister at Civitas Law in Cardiff. Indeed, I practised as a barrister for some years before entering Parliament in 2015.

I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena) on securing this debate on a very important subject and I join him in congratulating the many organisations that contribute to public legal education, which includes professional bodies such as the Law Society and the Bar Council, but also many other organisations, within our communities all around the country.

I share the hon. Gentleman’s passion for citizenship education, not only as taught in our schools but as part of lifelong citizenship education. He spoke very powerfully about scams and other matters when, of course, knowing your rights is important, whether that is at the age of 20 or much later in life. The hon. Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes) spoke very powerfully about a really important point to take from this debate, which is that nobody should ever feel that the legal profession is not for them. We want anyone to aspire to be in the legal profession on merit and not because of background.

[Mr Gary Streeter in the Chair]

The hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris) raised another important issue, namely the fact that public legal education really should not be an intimidating subject; it should be something that we can all speak about and access. I share the passion of the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) about public legal education in schools. Giving people the skills to go through life is indeed very important. I thank the hon. Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean), who drew, in a moving way, on her own personal experience of dealing with her mother’s dementia and applying for a lasting power of attorney which, with our ageing society, is something that more and more people will have to apply for in the years ahead.

The right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) set out well how law shapes our lives and she spoke very powerfully about the issue of maternity discrimination. The only thing that I will say about that is that we all need to be grateful to the Supreme Court for declaring tribunal fees unlawful, because I am sure the right hon. Lady will appreciate that between the introduction of the fees in July 2013 and the date on which they were declared unlawful by the Supreme Court the number of maternity discrimination cases fell significantly.

[Mrs Miller]

My point was much broader than that. Far more people are affected by maternity discrimination than bring maternity discrimination cases. Although the point that the hon. Gentleman has made is factually correct, I hope he agrees that it is important to think about those women who would never even have understood that they had been discriminated against. That is the point I was making.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I do not disagree with the right hon. Lady, and she is absolutely right to say that the problem is broader. However, she will appreciate that there must be an ability to enforce the right before a tribunal; otherwise, of course, the right loses its meaning. I think that we all hope that, now those fees are gone, we will get back to a position where everyone who wants to bring such a case is able to do so.

I do not doubt for a moment the Solicitor General’s commitment, and I know that he has been at the forefront of efforts to set up a panel that will co-ordinate work in this area. I will quote what he said when he set up the panel, because I agree with it:

“Teaching people about their legal rights and responsibilities, together with helping them gain the confidence and skills to get access to justice, can really make a difference to people’s lives—as well as our legal system.

The new Panel will help drive forward Public Legal Education, so more people can reap the benefits.”

That is all absolutely right.

Similarly, I do not disagree with what the hon. Member for North East Hampshire said when he maintained that one of the benefits of public legal education might be that more people can settle disputes outside court. That is absolutely right, as well. Of course we all want to see that; we do not want to see unnecessary litigation.

At the same time, although it is not my intention to be unduly partisan in a Westminster Hall debate, I have to record the concern that exists about the ability of people to enforce their rights before a court irrespective of their wealth. “Our system of justice has become unaffordable to most”—those are not my words, but those of the previous Lord Chief Justice, Lord Thomas, who said them in January 2016 in his annual report to Parliament. There is concern that we have to put alongside an absolutely correct drive towards greater public legal education a similar ability for people to enforce their rights before our courts if they need to do so.

The hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) mentioned a concern that exists about people in a very vulnerable position not having access to legal aid to enforce their rights. A very good example of that is state help in benefits cases, when people are indeed in a very vulnerable position and looking for advice as to how they can best enforce their rights and ensure the continuation of their income. The statistics on this are stark. In 2012-13, 83,000 people had the benefit of state help in those circumstances; by 2016-17, the figure was 440. That is a swingeing cut in help and assistance for those people to enforce their rights, and it is a great concern.

The hon. Member for Henley (John Howell), who is not in his place at the moment, rightly made the point that with the changing dynamics of our courts, with virtual courts and online courts, the idea of public legal education is becoming more important than ever. Far more people are representing themselves before the courts. In one sense, that reinforces the point about more public legal education, but there is a concern about the family courts in that regard. There has been a leap in those representing themselves from 45,000 people in 2012-13 to 64,000 in 2016-17, and the worry is that there is no protection in family courts for perpetrators of domestic violence to cross-examine their victims. Such a measure was included in the Prisons and Courts Bill, which was lost just before the general election of last year—I served on the Public Bill Committee. When will that provision be brought back? It would command wide support across the House, and the sooner it can be brought back and put into effect, the better for everyone concerned.

Legal aid is a huge concern across a number of areas, whether that is immigration, civil legal aid or criminal legal aid. I have looked at the figures, and between 2010-11 and 2016-17 there was a £950 million cut in legal aid. No wonder the legal profession has been driven to take the action it has, but it is about far more than figures; it is also about the idea that early legal advice can save money. I commend to the Solicitor General my noble Friend Lord Bach’s report, published in the past 12 months, in which precisely that issue of early legal advice is proposed as something that should be absolutely central in our justice system.

I think there is consensus about the importance of public legal education, and I am grateful to all those who do work in that area. I do not doubt for a moment the Solicitor General’s commitment and I am sure that progress will continue, but the means by which people can enforce their rights before the court should not be based on their personal wealth. At the same time as enhancing our public legal education, let us put legal aid back to where it was meant to be when it was introduced in 1949 as the fourth pillar of the welfare state.