Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Ian Lavery Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

As Lady Hale warned earlier this week, the £350 million legal aid cuts made by the Bill will hit the poorest and most vulnerable in society. She said that there is a well-known, ironic saying that

“in England, justice is open to all—like the Ritz”.

She went on to say:

“Courts are and should be a last resort but they should be a last resort that is accessible to all, rich and poor alike. The big society will be the big loser if everyone does not believe that the law is there for them.”

That sums up the current position very clearly.

The Bill represents a further attack on hard-working people and on the most vulnerable in society. It is a cobbled-together, dangerous, coalition concoction of the most risky kind. I think that it was the Justice Secretary who said today that it was a mixture of the Conservative dry and tough, and the soft, wet and liberal. I am honestly baffled by that. I do not know what it means; it does not make much sense. Should not our justice policy be wholly focused on the protection of the general public, on punishing offenders properly and on being on the side of the victim?

The Bill presents more questions than it answers. The measures go too far, too fast; they are incoherent. The cuts are aimed at saving money, not at reducing crime. The Bill puts cutting costs ahead of what is in the best interests of the victims and of reducing crime and punishing offenders. We are seeing massive cuts in front-line police, prison officers and probation trusts. Cuts to social welfare legal aid will leave the most vulnerable without any legal support. It is a one-size-fits-all approach to remodelling the civil justice system that threatens to render many areas of law unenforceable.

The Bill is unworkable, with a departmental cut of 23%. It is hardly the rehabilitation revolution promised by the Justice Secretary. The 23% cut to the Ministry of Justice budget means 10,000 fewer front-line staff in prisons and in probation, and a 50% reduction in capital spending on the prison estate. The cuts are intended to save £130 million, with a 3,500 reduction in the prison population. Undoubtedly the planned cuts will create massive problems with regard to the future security of prisons, the condition of the prison estate, and the safety of prison officers and their capacity to maintain order. It is an absolute nonsense for the Government to speak of the plans to improve rehabilitation and cut reoffending while cutting the number of prison and probation officers, and allowing the prison estate to be degraded.

There are three parts to the Bill: legal aid, litigation and funding costs, and sentencing and punishment of offenders. Like other hon. Members, I want to focus on the proposals for personal injury cases in the Jackson report, the precursor to the Bill. Jackson proposed that the after-the-event insurance premium become the responsibility of the claimant; that there be qualified one-way cost shifting to the defendant except in specific circumstances; that success fees be paid by the claimant; that referral fees be banned; and that there be a new test for proportionality. Those strong recommendations for reform are a package that needs to be implemented in full. The Bill does not deal with one of the most serious issues, the proposal to ban referral fees.

There are no proposals to ban referral fees. No one can have failed to become aware of the furore in the past two or three days created by the “revelation” of the market in road traffic accident claims. It now seems difficult to see which intermediary is not in receipt of a fee for selling on a claim. This cannot continue and should result in the banning of the payment of referral fees.

Many people were caught by surprise by this week’s revelations by insurance companies. They were shocked to hear that profits were being made from the sale of personal information, but some of us have been complaining vigorously about this practice for many years. The failure to ban referral fees is yet another example of the double standards that operate.

No legitimate claimant should be deterred from bringing a claim, and with no win, no fee no sensible lawyer would pursue a claim they did not have a reasonable prospect of winning. Make no mistake: this presents a huge struggle between the access rights of the injured person and the interests of those who have a financial interest in the outcome for the employer or third party who injured them. It also affects all Members’ constituents who find their ability to protect themselves and their families diminished by the savage cuts to legal aid.

What does the Bill do to address the delay caused by the unnecessary cost of defending the undefendable? It removes the claimant’s eligibility to legal aid to pursue a legitimate claim, leaving the weakest and most vulnerable in a much weaker position in investigating their claim or commencing proceedings.

Along with other organisations, the trade union movement sees that these changes will have a severe impact on health and safety. The employer who injures the employee will have no sanction imposed on him if the employee is discouraged or prevented from pursuing a legitimate claim for injury caused by the employer’s negligence. It is ironic that we are debating this on the day the Health and Safety Executive announced a huge increase—more than 170 in the past year—in workplace deaths. The trade union movement has a long and proven history of protecting its members, but that will be adversely affected by the Bill’s proposed changes.

Members have spoken about mediation, in respect of which there is cross-party support. The Government’s preferred option is not suitable for all, but it is an important tool in dealing with family breakdown. The Justice Committee and the family justice review have warned of the impact on vulnerable people, specifically those affected by domestic violence.

[Mrs Louise Mensch (Corby) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman make it clear that mediation is not suitable in all cases, especially those involving domestic violence, for which legal aid will remain available?

[Ian Lavery]

If the hon. Lady had been present earlier in the debate she would have heard hon. Members on both sides of the House discuss that point.

The cuts to legal aid are likely to provide no real saving to the public purse but will lead to courts struggling to cope as the weak and vulnerable struggle to represent themselves. Should not the weakest and most vulnerable have the same access to justice as those with plenty of finance behind them? The Bill fails to ensure fairness across the board and is, as many Members have said, an utter shambles.