Community Debt Advice Services

Debate between Yvonne Fovargue and Karl Turner

Wednesday 1st December 2021 Westminster Hall

[Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Bardell. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) on her well-informed and passionate speech.

We know demand for debt advice services is high and likely to increase, because personal debt is soaring, because of rising energy and food bills, and the end of furlough and debt payment holidays. Those schemes did quite a lot to put off the problem, but it never went away. About 4 million low-income households in the UK are behind on their rent, essential bills and debt payments. That figure has grown threefold since the pandemic, and coupled with that, there have been big changes to the commissioning of debt advice. That was on 16 July, when we had hoped the pandemic was coming to an end, but it is probably still carrying on, so is this the right time for a new and completely different approach?

It is really welcome that MaPS is investing more money in debt advice, and I also welcome the fact that it is looking at the wellbeing of advisers. Debt advice puts a considerable strain on those advising: quite often, the people who come in are at the end of their tether. There was a black joke in the citizens advice bureau I worked at that when somebody came in with a bulging carrier bag, it was going to be a debt client, and the bag would be full of bills that people could not open. They had put them behind the clock until the clock fell off the mantelpiece, and then they would seek debt advice. That was not just those who could not cope, but people from all walks of life, including professional people. Debt has a particular impact on individuals. It often leaves people feeling shame that they are in this position and cannot do what they want for their families. That is wrong, but it is how people feel, and we cannot get away from it.

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

I know that my hon. Friend is an expert in this area, not least because of all of the years that she worked with the CAB. Would she say something about the importance of the holistic approach to advice? This is very often not just about debt, but other issues, including domestic violence. In my experience as a criminal lawyer, people often get into all sorts of difficulties as a result of other factors. Indeed, the problem is often that people have not been pointed in the right direction on issues such as the benefits that they are entitled to, but do not actually claim.

[Yvonne Fovargue]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, and I will be moving on to discuss the wraparound provision, which does not just cover debt advice. We cannot just see debt as the problem: the important thing is the person who has the problem, and we have to deal with all their problems through that person-centred approach. It is no good just dealing with a person’s debt if they also have an employment problem or a housing problem that needs to be solved. We have to look at everything in the round.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Yvonne Fovargue and Karl Turner

Thursday 12th December 2013 Commons Chamber

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

2. What assessment she has made of the effect on women of changes in the cost of living.

[Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)]

5. What assessment she has made of the effect on women of changes in the cost of living.

Legal Aid Reform

Debate between Yvonne Fovargue and Karl Turner

Thursday 3rd February 2011 Commons Chamber

[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?