Legal Aid Reform

Debate between Rehman Chishti and Karen Buck

Thursday 3rd February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue) on introducing this debate. She spoke with enormous clarity and mapped out the ways in which the cuts in legal aid will have an impact on our constituents. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) who made many points with which I agree, including a warning to beware labelling all lawyers as fat cats. Legal aid lawyers work extremely hard for relatively modest remuneration, and we should remember that.

I do not wish to repeat the key points that these cuts represent a false economy; that there are real dangers in taking whole areas out of the scope of legal aid because so many cases are complex, and cases such as debt and housing run into each other and cannot be separated out; or that there are limits to the value of phone advice. These are very important points, but I will not dwell on them further.

I want to make three further points. First, if there was ever a time to be scaling back on legal aid, particularly in civil and social welfare law, this is not it. We are seeing massive upheavals in public service delivery: in education, to which I will return; in housing, through the proposals in the Localism Bill, which will introduce short-term tenancies; in welfare, with £18 billion being taken out of the welfare budget through the cuts in housing benefit; in disability benefits; and, as mentioned, in rising unemployment and the broader economic context.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady not accept that the current cost of legal aid is unsustainable? We are spending £38 per head of population on legal aid, whereas in Australia it is £9, and in France £3. These reforms are therefore essential to get our economy back on track.

[Ms Buck]

There are so many points with which to respond to that intervention. We cannot compare systems between countries. It is not helpful because the legal systems and the delivery of legal aid support are so different. The Labour Front-Bench team are willing to discuss the legal aid budget, particularly in some aspects of criminal legal aid. There are areas in which savings can be made, but I am particularly concerned about civil and social welfare law.

My second point, which was made strongly during an earlier Westminster Hall debate, concerns the impact of these cuts—given the speed and depth at which they are being made—on the legal aid firms, law centres, citizens advice bureaux and other advice agencies. In many cases, they draw on legal aid for part of their funding. The removal of legal aid funding is like a game of Jenga: we start pulling out the sticks and the whole edifice is in danger of collapse. I think we will see a massive, unplanned spate of service closures across the country, and we will not be able to control where they happen. There will be advice deserts, and many of our constituents will struggle as a consequence.

I will provide an example of what I am talking about. This reform is being delivered at the same time as cuts in local authority spending. The London grant scheme is being repatriated to the boroughs without ring-fencing, which means that advice services in London are at the whim of local boroughs that are themselves under pressure. Therefore, the grant funding that should complement the Legal Services Commission funding is unlikely to be there. That will clearly impact severely on citizens advice bureaux and law centres. As has been said, politicians will regret taking this decision. I am already seeing—I am sure that other hon. Members are seeing it too—people coming to me for what should be a legal advice and representation service that in many cases we are not qualified, and certainly not resourced, to provide. I predict with absolute certainty that our surgeries will be flooded with more and more desperate and angry people who cannot get the proper representation they should.

Finally, I want to touch on the disproportionate impact on women, children, people with disabilities and people from black and minority communities. We know from the scope of the areas affected that these cuts will fall most heavily on them. We have heard about family law and asylum-seeking communities, particularly asylum-seeking children, who will be left at risk because of these cuts. However, I want to make a particular case for education and special educational needs. In my borough there is a particular problem of children without school places—350 were without a place before Christmas. Those children and their families need advice and representation, and the parents seeking to take action against their local authority for denying them a statement of special educational needs are a particularly vulnerable group. We know from the number of tribunals that succeed that 82% of parents’ appeals that reach tribunal are upheld. The removal of assistance from those parents, many of whom simply do not have the skills or resources to make their own case, will mean that their children will not get the education to which they are entitled.

I urge the Minister to rethink many aspects of the proposals, in particular the narrowness of the scope that is being applied to legal aid cases and the arbitrary way in which the services are being withdrawn.