Legal Aid Reform

Yvonne Fovargue Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of the reform of legal aid.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for agreeing that this important topic be debated prior to the closure of the consultation on proposals for the reform of legal aid in England and Wales. The consultation paper proposes to cut an estimated £350 million from the civil legal aid budget. Roughly two thirds of those cuts are directed at people who are currently legally aid-able, and one third will come from remuneration cuts to providers, who are expected to do the same work but for less money.

Some £279 million will be cut from civil legal aid, and about half a million people will lose their entitlement to legal aid. The majority of them come from low- income households, and the Ministry of Justice’s own equality impact assessment acknowledges that they will be predominantly women, black and minority ethnic people and ill and disabled people. However, while the consultation acknowledges this, it also says that it is not just about cost but that it is the “right thing to do”. I believe that I can demonstrate that both the cost argument and the statement that it is the “right thing to do” are incorrect, and that the implementation of these proposals to reduce civil legal aid will hit the poorest hardest, increase the cost to other public bodies, and have a potentially catastrophic effect on not-for-profit advice agencies, including citizens advice bureaux and law centres.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. Does she agree that one of the issues that should be addressed is poor decision making by public authorities, particularly in immigration, where the UK Border Agency fails to make good decisions based on good evidence? That is why people have to go to the tribunal, and that is why they need legal aid.

[Yvonne Fovargue]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that comment. I will come to that later when I suggest some ways of saving money in the system.

Whole swathes of advice areas are removed from the scope of legal aid, particularly the social welfare law category. Welfare benefit is removed completely from legal aid. According to the Ministry of Justice’s own equality impact assessment, 63% of clients who received legal aid in this category had a disability, 54% were female and 27% were from a black and minority ethnic background. However, this is justified by stating that the

“accessible, inquisitorial and user friendly nature of the tribunal means appellants can generally present their case without any assistance”.

It also states:

“Advice and help are available from a number of sources including Job Centre Plus and the Benefits Enquiry Line”.

So people who have had their claim refused by Jobcentre Plus or the Benefits Agency are to go to them for support in challenging the decision and they will help them. I have to say that that is not the experience I had when I worked for an advice agency.

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)]

On the basis of what the hon. Lady has said, which I support entirely, would she be interested to know that Brighton Housing Trust’s Eastbourne advice centre deals with at least 800 specialist housing cases per year and anticipates that this will fall to about 100? Are we really expecting Jobcentre Plus to take up the slack?

[Yvonne Fovargue]

Yes, I totally agree. In fact, my local citizens advice bureau has phoned the Benefits Agency 100 times and has had no response apart from saying that everyone is busy.

These issues are not considered of sufficiently high importance, but when a person is ill or has a disability one of their major concerns is having an adequate income to enable a decent quality of life. The early advice available under this funding can save money. Some 80% of social welfare legal aid cases have positive outcomes for clients. In the agency where I worked, 70% of our reassessment appeals were successful, and that negated the need for a costly tribunal.

I would like to debunk the myth that these cases are not complex. My own CAB in Wigan dealt with a case for three years where the Department for Work and Pensions asserted that a couple were living together as man and wife, despite evidence from a neighbouring local authority that Mr M was resident there and receiving benefits, and that he merely visited to look after his disabled daughter, assisting with her care on occasion. Mrs M was summonsed for benefit fraud, convicted, and ordered to repay £27,000. The CAB continued with the case, appealed three times, and went to the Secretary of State. At the final appeal, Mrs M was found to owe £236—a reduction of more than £26,500. Was that a complex case? Would it be suitable for a telephone helpline? I do not think so. That client needed the face-to-face help given by a skilled CAB adviser and was funded by legal aid.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. Does she agree that the suggestion that legal advice could be provided over the phone fails to understand the level of support that is provided by many legal representatives, particularly when they are dealing with vulnerable groups such as asylum seekers and refugees—often people who face persecution, are separated from their family, and perhaps do not have English as a first language?

[Yvonne Fovargue]

I agree with my hon. Friend. In times of stress, people often need the support of a friendly face.

For every £1 of legal aid expenditure on welfare benefits in the Wigan borough, £20.50 per year of additional benefit is obtained for clients. Nationally, for every £1 of legal aid expenditure on welfare benefits, the state potentially saves £8.80.

[Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)]

rose—

[Yvonne Fovargue]

I would like to make a little progress, because the debate is quite late.

Debt is another area that will be removed from the scope of legal aid, except for cases in which the client’s home is at immediate risk. The impact assessment shows that 55% of debt clients are female and that 30% are likely to have a disability. Yet again, the consultation paper states that, although debt problems are important to the individual, they are not important enough to warrant legal aid funding.

I have seen the effects of debt on individuals, and the cost—both human and to the state, including to the NHS—of not resolving debt issues at an early stage. A project that I was involved in used a recognised NHS scale to monitor stress levels before and after the advice process dealing with unsecure debts. The primary care trust believed that in the first nine months of the project, three suicides had been prevented. At what cost? In Wigan, the citizens advice bureau deals with 616 debt clients per year at a cost of £123,000 to the state. It reschedules £4.83 million worth of debt and writes off £3.47 million worth. For the expenditure of £123,000, £367,000 is saved.

I support the expansion of financial education into schools and communities, but that will not assist people who are in debt now. My experience is that when the issue is raised in schools, more parents arrive at the advice agency’s door because they are made aware that there is somewhere to go. They almost feel that they have got permission to go there.

[Paul Farrelly]

Every conscientious MP knows the value of citizens advice bureaux. Quite simply, without them, our offices would be swamped. That prospect awaits us. My hon. Friend has highlighted the situation in Wigan. Citizens Advice has highlighted that 730 fewer people will receive specialist debt advice in Stoke-on-Trent, 1,280 fewer in my area of Newcastle-under-Lyme, and more than 1,500 fewer in north Staffordshire. Does she agree that this is not only a false economy, but a heartless cut?

[Yvonne Fovargue]

I agree with my hon. Friend. I will go on to give some figures on the impact that the proposals will have on advice agencies.

Agencies that provide telephone advice such as National Debtline have a great role to play, but they cannot replace face-to-face advice, as my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) said. The reality is that people need to sit down with an adviser. They need the reassurance and trust of a relationship that is built up over time.

There is a reason why social welfare law problems, including employment, housing, debt and benefits, were given primarily to advice agencies: the interlinking of those problems. Limiting the scope and the type of the problems that advisers can deal with limits their ability to deal with the whole person and with all their issues. For example, legal help might prevent somebody from losing their home because of debt, but it will not address the causes of that debt, such as unfair dismissal or a refusal of sickness benefits. I could give examples of many areas that are taken out of the scope of such help, but I believe that colleagues will mention them. The list is extremely long and access for the most vulnerable is severely curtailed in many cases.

I shall turn now to the effect on citizens advice bureaux and not-for-profit providers. The Ministry of Justice estimates that this sector will lose 97% of its legal aid funding. Currently, local citizens advice bureaux receive £26 million of legal aid funding, with the largest amounts being spent on debt and benefits. If the proposals are implemented, £20 million will go in one fell swoop and there will be a significant impact on the ability to deliver not only legal aid-eligible services but all other client services. A survey undertaken by Citizens Advice showed that if the proposal went ahead, 80% of local bureaux would have to withdraw specialist services, 85% would have reduced capacity to meet clients’ needs and, most shockingly, 51%—more than half—felt that there would be a risk to the continuation of the whole CAB service in their borough.

Legal aid funding cannot be treated in isolation from other sources of advice funding, especially as the consultation assumes that people can access other services to pick up the slack. The free advice sector is suffering disproportionately from public funding reductions, and even agencies such as the Royal National Institute of Blind People, which have no legal aid funding, have approached me to say that they could not deal with any increase in demand for their services due to the impact of the proposals.

[Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)]

The hon. Lady is making an eloquent case, particularly on behalf of organisations that are currently giving evidence on these matters to the Select Committee on Justice. Does she recognise that there ought to be some scope for funding to be provided for an examination of the sources of some of the problems on which advice is being sought, whether they are public bodies that make poor decisions, as the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) rightly pointed out, or the banks?

[Yvonne Fovargue]

I totally agree that there is scope for other funding provision, but that has not been available yet. In fact, provision is being withdrawn because of the withdrawal of funding for face-to-face advice from citizens advice bureaux.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend also accept that the need for advice is rising in the current economic climate, particularly on employment, social welfare benefits and debt?

[Yvonne Fovargue]

I completely agree. This is a time of great change for many clients, and the need for legal help is even more vital.

The suggested resolution to the problem is the community legal advice helpline, the gateway to civil legal aid services that will offer non-eligible clients access to paid services. First, I wish to take issue with the premise that the legal aid scheme has expanded beyond its original intentions. Actually, the Legal Aid and Advice Act 1949 was promoted with very wide objectives, which were explained as being intended to provide

“legal advice for those of slender means and resources so that no one will be financially unable to prosecute a just and reasonable claim or to defend a legal right”.

I am not convinced that a gatekeeping telephone helpline will promote that.

Access to telephone advice is important, and I would welcome any expansion of it, but it has to be implemented in tandem with face-to-face services. Clients need to have that choice. The community legal advice helpline uses an 0845 prefix, which is very expensive from a pay-as-you-go mobile. Many people with learning disabilities or mental health issues prefer to attend in person, to pick up on non-verbal signals and build the trust necessary to tell the advisers their problem. Citizens advice bureaux make a particular effort to reflect the communities that they serve, and that is why people use their services.

As an aside, I should like to mention volunteers, who are mentioned in the consultation paper as another way for people to pick up advice if the proposed changes are made. However, I do not believe that that is true. Volunteers work best and most confidently when they are supported and encouraged by specialists. It was only when that support was provided that the number of volunteers and the depth of the work that they undertook increased significantly in the bureau that I managed.

There are opportunities to save money in the justice sector without placing the burden on front-line services. The Ministry of Justice intends to reform the Legal Services Commission, and there is a large amount of bureaucracy in the administration of legal aid. I spent 60% of my time managing 30% of the money that I got. A lighter-touch procurement, auditing and payment mechanism could be found, and that needs to be considered seriously.

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

On the point about volunteers, many of my colleagues in my chambers, and in local firms of solicitors, volunteer their services to advice bureaux regularly. The incidence of that will diminish given the dreadful cuts to those firms’ legal aid and the fact that they cannot take on trainees as a result of the cuts. Advice is diminishing drastically as a result of the Government’s cuts.

[Yvonne Fovargue]

I agree with my hon. Friend that pro bono advice provision is important, but it is not available in all places. In fact, in the conurbation that I served, there was no pro bono advice.

It is also important to decrease the need for civil legal aid by addressing poor decision making by public bodies and avoiding the need for tribunals. We should take the lawyers out of tribunals, make legal processes simpler and improve public legal education. Early advice saves money and keeps cases out of the courts. We should look to fund that kind of advice instead of salami-slicing and looking at administratively convenient categories of problems. Advice provision needs to be organised around people’s real needs and their need to be treated as an individual, not as an individual problem.

Access to justice is one of the cornerstones of a free and civilised society. It is vital that everyone, particularly the most vulnerable, has equal access to the law, no matter who they are, where they live or how much money they have. The Government’s consultation proposes to remove access to justice for the most vulnerable. Is that access to justice, or justice denied?

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvonne Fovargue]

I thank all the Members who contributed to the debate. Some good and passionate points were made on both sides of the argument. Legal aid has been called the fourth pillar of the welfare state, and I urge the Minister to listen and take on board some of the points that have been made, and not to cut into the legal aid budget so deeply that the whole building collapses, leaving Members to pick up the pieces in their surgeries.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the matter of the reform of legal aid.

[Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, whose leadership heads the most incompetent quango in the country, has today published a “name and shame” of Members of Parliament who, in its mind, have made claims to which they were not entitled. Among those names is mine, but I have to tell the House that the payment was made to me in full on 13 December. IPSA knew that. Admittedly, it took two months to pay, but it acknowledged that the claim was legitimate and it was paid. However, my name appears in a list of those who had a claim refused. What action can be taken by Members who have been maligned—one could argue libelled and slandered—by this incompetent organisation?