Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Tom Brake Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2011 Commons Chamber

The new clause would at least mitigate the untenable situation of agencies being funded to deal with only one issue when they know that the root cause of the problem still remains, and it would put them back, in some small way, to being able to deal with the individual as an individual with a group of issues and problems, thus preventing the inevitable recurrence. I urge hon. Members to support the new clause.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

I rise to speak principally about new clause 17, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue).

Before I do so, I should like to comment on amendment 116. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh West (Mike Crockart) made a cogent case for deleting clause 12. The Minister rightly said in Committee that

“the practicalities are the greatest stumbling block, and the costs could be significant.”––[Official Report, Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Public Bill Committee, 8 September 2011; c. 437.]

My hon. Friend underlined that that had been the experience in Scotland. It is therefore clear what the Government’s response should be. For the sake of clarity and succinctness, the Bill could appropriately lose clause 12.

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

I think I am right in saying that the right hon. Gentleman is speaking to an amendment that would effectively get rid of the idea of means-testing in police stations. I agree that this is an issue of great concern to Members in all parts of the House. I am surprised, however, that when he sat on the Bill Committee he did absolutely nothing about it when he could have supported my amendment or that of the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd).

[Tom Brake]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I am not sure whether he is saying that I should not be raising the point now, but that is what I am doing.

[Karl Turner]

rose—

[Tom Brake]

I am not going to give way. The point has been raised, it is on the record. I am sure that the Minister will have heard it. My right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) will speak about this in relation to amendment 148, and I am sure that he will echo the concerns raised by the hon. Member for Makerfield about the telephone gateway.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman will know that the Law Society, the Bar Council, the Family Law Bar Association and the Lord Chief Justice have all indicated that the changes made by the Government in this Bill will curtail access to the legal system but that the projected savings will not be obtained. Given that the right hon. Gentleman sat on the Bill Committee, perhaps he can tell me why all those organisations are wrong but the Government and the Bill he supports are correct.

[Tom Brake]

In a situation where funding is going to be withdrawn from organisations, it is not surprising that their response is that they do not favour it. The Government need to monitor very carefully some of the concerns that have been raised about the impact of withdrawing legal aid, and we have already had assurances that that will be the case.

[Elizabeth Truss (South West Norfolk) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Tom Brake]

I will give way one last time and then move on to new clause 17.

[Elizabeth Truss]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that some of those organisations have an interest in pushing up the legal aid bill because they are its main recipients?

[Tom Brake]

The hon. Lady makes a point that is worth considering. Clearly, certain organisations are financial beneficiaries of some of the funding, but I do not want to throw out all the concerns that have been raised because, equally, there are legitimate concerns that the Government need to monitor very carefully.

I turn to new clause 17. I had hoped that during the debate on Monday we would reach the group of amendments on social welfare in which my amendment 149 on complex welfare benefits was listed. Also in the group was amendment 131, which sought to ensure that advice on housing repossessions was available sooner. I regret that we did not reach that group, as, I am sure, does my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd), who is chairman of the all-party group on Citizens Advice. However, new clause 17 touches on many aspects of what was included in amendment 149. I welcome the fact that the hon. Member for Makerfield has put the matter up for debate today because it provides an opportunity to discuss some of the points that would have been raised on amendment 149. Her definition in trying to ensure that legal aid is extended to complex cases is

“that the individual has complex, interconnected needs”

and that

“not all of those…legal services would otherwise be available to the individual”.

It is reasonable to speculate that many, or most, individuals with complex and interconnected needs will also have welfare benefit issues that will often also be complex. Under the Government’s proposals, welfare benefit cases, complex or otherwise, are excluded from the scope of legal aid.

I acknowledge that the scope of the hon. Lady’s new clause is slightly different from what was proposed in amendment 149. However, if it had been restricted to individuals with complex and interconnected needs who require legal help with complex welfare benefit issues, I suspect that we would have been discussing exactly the same area of legal aid, because virtually every individual who has a benefit advice problem involving issues of legal complexity, significant evidential hurdles or daunting adjudication processes will have complex and interconnected needs. According to Citizens Advice, that more targeted approach would help to achieve a compromise position whereby more complex cases can be covered by the legal help system. When we asked Citizens Advice what it would identify as a single priority as regards what the Government should change, that is what it proposed.

Citizens Advice has calculated the cost impact of its proposal. It says that the current welfare benefits advice spend is £25 million on just under 140,000 cases, and that restricting it to complex welfare benefit cases covering only reviews and appeals, which applies to two thirds of the current welfare benefit cases, would cost £16.5 million and help around 100,000 people. The cost could fall further if, as the Government and all hon. Members intend in practice, decision making first time round is improved and becomes much more effective. The CAB calculation is that if we were to improve first-time decision making by 30%, the costs of that provision could fall to £12 million.

[Sir Alan Beith]

Is it not absurd that the Government should be scrabbling around for money to meet the costs of bad decision making and bad communication between Departments and those who are affected by their decisions? Ought not the Government’s priority be to ensure that those Departments change those processes, which they are more likely to do if they have an incentive, which is provided by the fact that their budget will meet some of the costs if they do not do so?

[Tom Brake]

There has not been much consensus in the Chamber, but I suspect that there is broad agreement on that point.

[Mr Slaughter]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The Liberty briefing paper states that the

“Community Links advice service records that…73% of the benefits related cases handled by their staff arose as a result of errors on the part of the Department of Work and Pensions.”

The Opposition agree with him, but we are where we are, and particularly at this time of change, we need certainty that those people will be properly represented. I think he said that he would not support new clause 17, but will he support amendment 116 and, later, the new clause in his name or the new clause relating to the Dowlers, which is in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant)? He has given assurances outside the House and said that he supports those positions, but he now seems to be resiling from them. Will he and his hon. Friends support those measures? Will he answer that question now?

[Tom Brake]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, which is in the tradition of his speeches—lengthy. He should perhaps have waited until I had finished my comments before jumping to any conclusions.

[Karl Turner]

Will you be supporting it?

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Brake]

We have rightly highlighted issues such as criminal negligence in earlier debates, and this afternoon we will focus on libel and slander cases that affect a relatively small number of people.

[Karl Turner]

Give us a clue Tom!

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order.

[Tom Brake]

As I stated earlier, the simple change in new clause 12 affects a very large number of people—up to 100,000. As I mentioned in the debate yesterday, it is incumbent on Members who propose alternatives that mean the Government will spend more when they are trying to address a very large deficit to identify where funding for such proposals would come from. I hope we have an opportunity to debate amendment 144 this afternoon, because that would more than adequately cover the expenditure that the amendments would necessitate.

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman talks about the need for Government Departments to look at how they interconnect. From my constituency case load experience, a significant number of those 100,000 people are likely to develop mental health problems as a result of the predicament in which they find themselves. Surely money invested in provision for them would save the Department of Health quite considerable moneys. Is he confident that coalition Front Benchers have been talking to each other to do that sort of cost-benefit analysis?

[Tom Brake]

The hon. Lady’s intervention is a fair one. I have raised the knock-on impact on other Departments directly with the Minister. I have received assurances that, for instance, the Department of Health has analysed the impact and does not see significant knock-on costs. That is the assurance that I have been given.

I conclude by urging the Minister to make a clear statement that the Government believe that the issue of complex welfare benefits is still up for negotiation, and that they will make progress on it in the Lords. If he cannot give such an assurance, and if the hon. Member for Makerfield presses new clause 17 to a Division, it is with regret that I would feel obliged to support it. I await the Minister’s response with interest.

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Hughes]

None of us can stand up and say that there do not have to be reductions, but of course it is not just the lawyers, the citizens advice bureaux or the other advice bureaux we should be concerned about; it is advice workers and qualified advice workers too.

The right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd), who has just left the Chamber, tried to wind us up earlier. I have one objective in these considerations: if I do not think that a Bill was in the right place when it began, I want to ensure that it ends up in the right place by the time it becomes law, As we know, the reality is that sometimes we can make and win an argument in Committee, but it is very rare for a Government to be defeated in Committee. Sometimes the argument can be won on Report. Arguments are normally won when the Government have been persuaded not only in the Chamber, but outside it. I have had meetings with the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) and other colleagues, as have many other Members. The press reports that my colleagues on the Liberal Democrat Benches want to make further progress and changes, and we will continue in that.

We have heard that the Minister was very good and said in response to my amendment 145 which we debated on Monday that he would look specifically at the issue of family reunion, and I take him at his word. I think that that is a case where we need change, and I have no reason to think that, if he is helpful today, we cannot make significant progress. Of course, it would be lovely if all the amendments were made today, but we are not necessarily at that stage.

[Tom Brake]

My right hon. Friend has been a Member for many years. Can he recall on how many occasions when the Labour party was in power and we as an Opposition party put forward amendments in Committee that we received its support?

[Simon Hughes]

I cannot, either because there were none or they were very rare. To be serious, however, I have been a Member not quite for ever but for a long time under both Labour and Tory Governments, and I do not want to get distracted by that, because in reality we on the Liberal Democrat Benches all seek to work with the Government to get the right outcome, and we will do so constructively. We shall do that not by megaphone diplomacy but in a way that I hope is persuasive in argument and wins the day.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

One of the most important things that the House can ever afford to the citizens of this country is equal and fair access to justice. Notwithstanding the remarks of the Lord Chancellor, I believe that the Bill will make it more difficult for my constituents to have access to justice.

[Tom Brake]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Bryant]

I will not, if the right hon. Gentleman does not mind.

I shall not go into the issue of legal aid, but I want to speak briefly about conditional fee agreements. The Lord Chancellor was absolutely right to say that it was a Conservative Government who introduced them, and they were right to do so. In privacy and defamation cases, the awards are for the most part very small. In privacy cases, they are universally small. No privacy case has ever involved an award of more than £60,000, yet such cases cost many hundreds of thousands of pounds to take to court. Similarly, the vast majority of awards in defamation cases come in at less than £50,000. A few get up to £100,000, and of course prominence is given in the press to the much bigger ones.

I am sure that it is not the Lord Chancellor’s intention, but the danger in the Government’s proposals is that lawyers will simply not be able to take on such cases. Yes, they might take on cases such as the Dowlers or Christopher Jefferies, because they are open and shut cases, but in the vast majority of the cases relating to phone hacking, people are already terrified of taking an action because they do not want to have to go through the whole business of having their privacy re-explored by the national newspapers and in court. Those people will have no opportunity in the future. I should tell the House that I myself have used a conditional fee agreement, and that if it were not for lawyers being prepared to act on that basis, there is no way that the whole phone hacking scandal would have been exposed.

Question put, That the Bill be now read a Third time.