Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Anna Soubry Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Yvonne Fovargue]

I wish to support the hon. Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) and remind the House that there is a high level of decision-making error. In a recent Westminster Hall debate, we were told that the delay in tribunals is more than one year because of the number of people who—let us remember this—have been unlawfully denied benefit. They have been unlawfully denied their rights. When people go to a tribunal and are represented, they are 78% more likely to win. This is not just about the representation; it is about the preparation of written statements, for which they can receive legal help. They do not receive any legal help for representation, but legal help is provided for a written statement, which will help them go themselves to the tribunal. May I remind the Secretary of State that these written statements and the representation, in the main, are not provided by lawyers or generalist advisers, and they are certainly not provided by MPs? I find it really insulting to the dedicated and knowledgeable band of specialists with whom I have worked over the years for him to say, “Anyone can do this. We MPs will do it for them because we can do it better.” That is simply not the case.

I also wish to discuss the fact that many of the cases do not involve legal help. I can assure Government Members that, having been audited many times by the Legal Services Commission, I know that it does not pay its money out willy-nilly—even the £164 that is obtained for a legal aid case. If it felt that something did not fall within the scope of legal help, someone would not get the money for that case—indeed, it would possibly deduct from even more cases. It is really important to get the facts and the right sort of evidence for a tribunal, which is where specialists are important. Unfortunately, although I welcome the second tier being brought back into scope, it cannot look again at any evidence; it can look only at the point of law. So the fact that someone has not presented the right evidence and that the right facts have not been looked at cannot be considered any further.

Early advice saves money. Early advice is so important in all aspects of law in order to keep people out of the courts system, as the Secretary of State said. This measure is like telling somebody who has a chest infection, “When you get to the stage of intensive care, we will deal with you,” when a cheap course of antibiotics could help them in the first place.

The cost of reviews and appeals is 66% of the legal aid budget, or £16.5 million. That amount of money would bring these cases back into scope and it would save the country money that would otherwise go on complicated cases and on people falling on to the state in the long run. Every such case on welfare benefits saves the state £8.80 in other costs; it saves time and it saves money. To take these cases out of scope and simply leave a second-tier tribunal in scope is a false economy. It will not help the people who come to our surgeries and it will not help the people who are looking for advice from a citizens advice bureau, because, as has been said many times, the required number of specialists may not be in place. The cases left in scope will not be viable for many of the advice agencies.

I believe that keeping amendment 168 and providing help in lower-tier tribunals will in the end save money and, more importantly, will save misery for a lot of people who have been unlawfully denied benefits by the state.

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)]

I agree with much of what has been said about the Government’s change of heart on the definition of domestic violence. I pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) and for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant), and I congratulate the Secretary of State on changing the definition to include the ACPO definition, as was urged upon him by Opposition Members, one of whom is present now and who put her argument in Committee.

I also congratulate the Government on changing the evidence gateway for those who have been affected by domestic violence. We must remember that there was never a proposal to change the legal aid provisions for people who were in need of protection. The proposed changes were about other matters that might flow from such initial proceedings, and the disagreement was not about the principle of getting legal aid, but about the sort of evidence required in order to get it.

I do not often disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon, but I think we might disagree about social welfare legal aid. I agree with the Secretary of State: I do not see why a lawyer should always be required to sort out disputes about welfare benefit. I do not disagree with the argument that people might need somebody to represent them, however. As a former criminal barrister who defended far more than I prosecuted, I am familiar with the sort of people who will often end up needing somebody to represent them because, for whatever reason, they do not have the ability to advance their case themselves. There is no argument about that. I do not believe that a lawyer has to do that, however.

I pray in aid the situation in my constituency of Broxtowe. We have a citizens advice bureau but no law centre. My CAB has never received legal aid for any of the work it does. It is an outstanding organisation. It has faced substantial cuts in funding from Nottinghamshire county council, but it has gone out and got extra funds, and it is doing a remarkable job. In my constituency work, there has not been any benefit case that my team has not been able to sort out. I have yet to have such a case where I have said, “I think you need to go and see a specialist lawyer.” Many people do need good representation, however, and my CAB provides it.

I urge the Government to beware of the litigant in person. It is often said that only a fool has himself for a lawyer. Friends and former colleagues at the Bar have told me that there has been a rise in the number of people representing themselves in the civil courts, certainly in Nottingham and on the eastern circuit. The Government must look very carefully at that development. They must not take the simple view that when people represent themselves we will save money. Invariably, such people are a nightmare. [Interruption.] I do not say that in any way disrespectfully to most such people—although some litigants in person genuinely are a nightmare. Most of them need advice and support but feel that they cannot afford legal representation, and the consequence often is that the whole system grinds to a halt. Judges find that they have to intervene far more often and cases take longer, and costs therefore rise.

I welcome these proposals, and I will support the Government on them.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

Finally, there is the question of whether approving the exemption for mesothelioma sufferers would open the floodgates. Surely the fact that we cannot always do the right thing for every single group does not mean that we should never do the right thing for any group. As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter), these people face an agonising death, and they are never the cause of their circumstances but always the victims. At a time when the Government are proposing massive savings in justice bills, for us to make this small concession to one group of people who are suffering terribly would show the human side of the House. I urge all Members to support the amendment, which was backed by members of all parties and huge numbers of Cross-Benchers in the other place, and to show that the House of Commons has a heart.

[Anna Soubry]

As you have probably gathered, Madam Deputy Speaker, I did not plan to speak in this part of the debate. However, after I had listened to a couple of speeches—notably that of my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), and what I could hear of that of the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins)—I was struck by the fact that the issues do not sit comfortably together.

There is genuine concern about the possibility that people suffering from what is indeed a horrible condition will lose out in some way, but I have to say, quite bluntly, that I do not understand why on earth the Government are involved in this aspect of disputes between people and their employers. One of the real problems is employers who do not have the guts, decency and honesty to admit liability, stop messing about, sort out compensation, pay it as swiftly as possible, and let people die in dignity and security.

Many hon. Members are aware that I am a lawyer, and as such I say that we must be honest about the other problem. I will always defend my profession and the other profession involved, that of solicitors. The real problem is not just that employers are not doing the honourable thing; we have to make sure that we, as lawyers, also do the honourable thing. It cannot be right that we do not behave honourably when we are representing somebody. We must make sure that the fees we charge are the right ones.

I say bluntly that I have looked at solicitors’ websites, including only today, and been horrified by how they advertise themselves. They say, “This is the money we can get you.” I do not believe—I know that some Opposition Members are solicitors—that that is the way solicitors should work. I will always defend good, honourable lawyers, but what I have described cannot be the right approach when bringing an action on behalf of somebody in real need of our assistance—that is what lawyers often do. This idea that we are all heartless and just in it for money is simply not true. In my experience, most lawyers, certainly those at the criminal Bar, are, most of the time, social workers with wigs on, and we do a lot of hard work pro bono. However, I am sorry to say that there is a section of lawyers who see this as a way of making money out of other people’s pain and distress. So we want employers to do the decent thing and we want the Law Society to be far more honourable and to regulate its own members far harder. Perhaps if we could achieve that, we would not face this farce.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Given what the hon. Lady has said, does she think it is appropriate to leave it up to the victims of mesothelioma to be the people who police what lawyers are charging? What the Minister said earlier, in a shockingly insensitive remark, was that the victims can watch the lawyer’s clock; it will now be the job of people whose lives are running out to watch the lawyer’s clock.

[Anna Soubry]

That is a strong point, but I have sympathy with the Minister’s argument, because everyone who is engaged in litigation has a duty—some of us have been engaged in litigation in difficult emotional times, with divorce being a very good example—to ensure that things are being done on their behalf in the right way. Some hon. Members are muttering from a sedentary position. Of course when somebody is sick it does seem heartless and cruel to say that they should be watching the clock, but we hope that they would be taking an interest in the conduct of their case. I respectfully suggest that that would include the costs. Often these people have families, who would also want to ensure not only that the costs are being properly calculated, but that the case is being properly conducted. That is what I would say on that point. I just hope that somewhere along the line there will be some way of sorting this out, given all the various submissions that have been made.

[Ian Lucas]

I shall be brief, Madam Deputy Speaker. I have read an excellent letter from my right hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins) to the Lord Chancellor, which set out an unanswerable case against this proposal. It is wrong, in principle, that the Government are proposing this evening to reduce the damages of a successful mesothelioma claimant. I am a solicitor, and I did not go into the law to take damages away from a dying person, pending the outcome of a claim.

I have been very much strengthened in my conviction by the words of my constituent Marie Hughes, whose husband, Phil, a massively respected head teacher in Wrexham, died from mesothelioma, having worked for four years at the Brymbo steelworks in his youth. She has written to me explaining, in her own words, why she thinks this proposal is wrong, and I am going to read this out to the Minister, whom I respect. I hope that he will listen. She says:

“Had we had to undergo the further anxiety of financial implications we would not have attempted to claim. The thought of ‘shopping around’ for deals on success fees like other claimants as the Government suggests would be an unimaginable burden. Any monies available were needed to sustain our day to day costs, my inability to go to work while my husband was ill, and the need for travelling/sustenance funding when receiving treatment away from home, also supporting our family in further education. If there was a chance of treatment, we could not gamble with our savings as the stakes were too high. By the final 3 months of Phil’s life, tumours had also developed on his spine resulting in paralysis from the chest down—and all this while he was fighting to breathe.

My husband was not there to proudly escort his daughter down the aisle, though he had spoken of this dream several times during our precious time together. He never saw grandchildren. He bravely bore his condition and battled to the end but Mesothelioma takes no prisoners.”

I appeal to Government Members to reconsider their position. They should listen to the Lords and accept the amendment. To take damages away from these victims would be an appalling act of which the Government should be ashamed.