Oral Answers to Questions

Natascha Engel Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

Yes, we will make every effort to ensure that prisoners learn to read and write if they cannot do so when they arrive. A good deal of the excellent work to achieve that is done by volunteers, mentors and charities. That foreshadows what we hope we can achieve with the wider transforming rehabilitation agenda. My hon. Friend is right to focus on this issue because literacy skills mean that somebody has a greater likelihood of getting and holding on to a job, which helps to reduce reoffending.

[Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)]

T9. After 1 April, the courts will be full of people defending themselves because they cannot afford professional advice and no longer have access to legal aid. What is the Department doing to ensure that everybody gets access to justice, not only those who can afford it?

[Chris Grayling]

Opposition Members must realise that they left behind not only the biggest deficit in our peacetime history, but also the most expensive legal aid system in the developed world. We must take tough decisions and have a system that is realistic, given our financial constraints. I believe we have achieved that with the reforms we have put forward. We will monitor the impact of those reforms and ensure that we adjust anything that needs to be adjusted. Opposition Members should not believe that there are alternatives to what we are doing.