Legal Aid Reform

Debate between Andrew Smith and Kate Green

Thursday 27th June 2013 Commons Chamber

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

I want to speak about these proposals specifically in relation to prisoners, not when they are on trial but after sentencing or when they are in prison on remand. The proposed savings of £4 million mean that they will no longer be able to access legal advice and will instead be expected to use the internal complaints system when they have problems.

It is unpopular to speak up for prisoners’ rights in this House, but it is so important that we do so, because it is a mark of our being a civilised society that we set parameters on what we do to people when we remove their liberty. Removing their liberty does not equate with removing all their human and legal rights.

[Mr Andrew Smith (Oxford East) (Lab)]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend’s point about prisoners. I am sure that she will apply it equally to those in immigration detention. The removal of legal aid from those people breaches the specific pledge given by the Lord Chancellor to this House on 18 December last year, when he said that legal aid will continue to be available to anybody whose life or liberty is at stake. Is it not essential that that promise be kept?

[Kate Green]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. I do not have time to cover immigration in detail, save to say that we are talking about people who may be returned to face homophobia, torture and appalling treatment when they have lost asylum cases or are failed immigration seekers, yet they are being denied access to legal advice contrary to the assurances that we were given in this House.

We know that people in prison are more likely to have learning difficulties or mental health problems, or to be poorly educated. They are often the product of disruptive and difficult childhoods. Many of them have arrived in prison having spent most of their childhood, to our great shame, in public care. Those people are particularly poorly equipped to advocate for themselves and to use the internal prison complaints system. It is therefore particularly important, not only in their own interests but in the interests of the smooth running of the prison, that we take the steps that we should to ensure that they are given effective opportunities to make their case.

Disability Allowance

Debate between Andrew Smith and Kate Green

Tuesday 30th November 2010 Westminster Hall

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

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate under your chairmanship, Mr Crausby. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr Clarke) on securing the debate, because there is clearly considerable interest and concern right across the House.

I know that several Members would like to speak, and my right hon. Friend has eloquently presented many of the points that I would have raised, so I will highlight just three issues. First, I remind right hon. and hon. Members that disability living allowance is intended to meet social and participation needs, not to provide support for medical needs. That underpins the reason why so many of us in the debate are so concerned about its removal from people in residential care. To some degree, such people are already isolated from the community because they are in special and slightly artificial circumstances, and many of them are acutely aware of that special isolation. The mobility component of disability living allowance enables people to leave that residential setting from time to time for leisure or social purposes, to be with their families and, in some cases, for employment and educational purposes, so it is a precious aspect of their social participation rights.

[Mr Andrew Smith]

My hon. Friend brings enormous expertise to the debate. One point that has not been mentioned so far is that entitlement to DLA is a trigger for accessing the Motability scheme. As she says, contact with the community is enormously important, and some of the people we are talking about have jobs. Will people not risk losing the cars that they get through the Motability scheme? Is that not awful?

[Kate Green]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for raising that. I am also grateful to a number of disability organisations, including RADAR, the Royal National Institute of Blind People and Leonard Cheshire Disability, for highlighting the fact that individuals need to be in receipt of DLA for three years to access the Motability scheme. As my right hon. Friend says, there is a very real risk.

Fundamentally, we are talking about a threat to the independence of people in residential care settings. That threat arises because the costs and inconvenience of leaving those settings are greater for such people than they are for those who do not need the mobility component of DLA. The mobility component helps those in a residential setting to go beyond the basic level of transportation—for instance, when attending medical appointments. It enables full participation.

I hope that a full impact analysis of the proposals will be directed specifically to social and participation needs. I would welcome such an undertaking from the Minister.