Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Lord Wigley Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2012 Lords Chamber

I am keen not to go over the 15-minute limit in proposing the amendment. There are some other matters I would like to talk about, but I shall not on this occasion. The point I want to make in supporting my amendment is that the Government have, for some reason or other, in this case not provided sufficient information or assessment about the consequences of the Bill they are asking Parliament to pass. This is not an insignificant Bill. It has profound effects on access to justice and people’s actual lives. It is a fair argument, I hope, that the least that we could expect as legislators is that there would be a better assessment of the costs in both social and economic terms of the Bill before us. In my view, there is not that analysis. That is disappointing; in fact, I think it is scandalous. When the Minister sums up the debate, I would like him to answer the question: why?

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords, I support Amendment 6, which was so reasonably moved by the noble Lord, Lord Bach, and to which I have added my name.

The impact on society of some of the provisions in the Bill will be major and far reaching—perhaps further reaching than was anticipated when the Bill was formulated. I suggest that the Government have attempted to rush through so much legislation that little time has been given to the impact assessments. All Bills tend to have unintended consequences, but overloaded Bills such as this, covering material which perhaps should have been spread over two or three separate Bills, will have even more unforeseen consequences.

During Second Reading, I argued that the cuts in legal aid would have a disproportionate effect on the most vulnerable people in our society. This includes people with mental health problems and other disabilities, who will find it impossible to gain access to free legal advice due to the complexities arising in those cases. It also includes children and young people—particularly those caught up in messy divorce cases and in the likely psychological trauma that can ensue from lengthy court battles, many of which will no longer be covered by legal aid. It also includes those suffering domestic abuse, many of whom will not qualify for legal aid, as the spectrum of abuse that the Government concede to recognise is so narrow.

People with disabilities or mental health issues, children, young people and sufferers of domestic abuse are the groups that will be affected by the changes. However, as the amendment points out, the Bill is likely to have further unintended consequences on the rate of homelessness, social integration and, indeed, suicide. I support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Bach, as it would ensure that the Government had a duty to conduct an assessment of the likely impact that these changes would have on such vulnerable groups. It would also require the Government to review the likely costs that would result for these groups were the provisions in the Bill to be introduced.

As the noble Lord, Lord Bach, has noted, that is particularly important if we take into account the findings of the King’s College, London, report, Unintended Consequences: the cost of the Government’s Legal Aid Reforms, published yesterday. This shows that the cuts will result in unbudgeted costs of at least £139 million, cancelling out about 60 per cent of the £240 million projected from the legal aid cuts. The author of the report, Dr Graham Cookson of King’s College, argues that this research undermines the Government’s economic rationale for changing the legal aid budget. He also points out that £139 million is likely to be a substantial underestimate of the true cost. It certainly begs a question as to the extent to which the impact of these cuts has been properly assessed.

This follows on from the findings of the Government’s own impact assessment that the proposals present a risk to social cohesion and the possibility of higher criminality, reduced business and economic efficiency, and increased resource costs for other departments. This finding was noted in the Ministry of Justice’s cumulative impact assessment of November 2010, yet the Government have done nothing to counter these appalling consequences which will come about as a result of the Bill’s implementation.

According to the King’s College report commissioned by the Law Society, private family law will see knock-on costs of £100 million per annum set against the proposed saving of £170 million; social welfare law will see knock-on costs of £35.2 million against a £58 million saving; and clinical negligence cases will see knock-on costs of £28.5 million set against a saving of only £10.5 million. These proposals alone would cost the NHS three times the amount that will be saved by the Ministry of Justice.

The report does not include other costs identified by other research, including the analysis conducted by Citizens Advice in 2010, which suggests that the proposed cut of £60 million from social welfare legal aid will spell the closure of advice services that save the state some £338 million. This point is of course addressed by the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Bach. In fact, the amendment urges the Government to look at the complete picture—at the destructive impact that these cuts will have on the fabric of our society. I urge noble Lords to support Amendment 6.