All 11 Debates between Robert Buckland and Jonathan Djanogly

Wed 2nd Sep 2020
Private International Law (Implementation of Agreements) Bill [Lords]
Commons Chamber

2nd reading & 2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & 2nd reading
Mon 8th Jun 2020
Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Bill [Lords]
Commons Chamber

2nd reading & 2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion & Programme motion: House of Commons & 2nd reading & Programme motion & Money resolution

Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill

Debate between Robert Buckland and Jonathan Djanogly
Jonathan Djanogly Portrait Mr Djanogly
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Has my right hon. and learned Friend also considered the Bribery Act, where a similar set of procedures was forced on corporates, with dramatic results?

Robert Buckland Portrait Sir Robert Buckland
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My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Of course, he was a Minister in the Ministry of Justice when the Bribery Act was brought into force at the end of the 2005 Parliament, and he has direct experience of this issue. He is absolutely right that the Bribery Act has been of huge value. In fact, under the regime of deferred prosecution agreements that the Government brought in in the early part of the last decade, of the 11 DPAs that have been made by the Serious Fraud Office with corporates, nine were for “failure to prevent offences”—failure to prevent bribery—and just three were for the offence of fraud. That accounts for 90% of the £1.7 billion in revenue that the SFO has brought in through DPAs. It is clear that that has been an important step change in the way we deal with wrongdoing or indeed the threat of wrongdoing.

For people who think this is some sort of academic exercise, I draw their attention to the LIBOR scandal and the forex rate rigging scenario. There was no bringing to account of anyone involved—there was impunity. That is not good for the rule of law or the economic wellbeing of this country.If we want people to invest in the United Kingdom—we do and we have excelled in direct foreign investment over generations—then they need to have the confidence that if there is a problem, there is redress of grievance, accountability and a way of recouping the loss or making sure their investment is safe. That is what I believe the new clauses go to.

We have been careful in the test we wish to apply to the “failure to prevent” offences that form the subject of new clauses 4 and 6. It was tempting to follow the recommendation in the report by the House of Lords’ Fraud Act 2006 and Digital Fraud Committee, chaired by my noble Friend Baroness Morgan of Cotes, to apply the wider test contained within the Criminal Finances Act 2017 relating to failing to prevent tax evasion. That would not require an intention by the corporate or the individual to confer a benefit on the company or a benefit on a person to whom the suspect—the defendant— is providing services on behalf of the company. I have sought not to go that far, but to replicate the Bribery Act test, which is the intention to confer a benefit. It is important that when we seek to draft legislation, we are as mindful as possible of not widening it to an extent that could in many ways create further unfairness. We have an obligation to ensure that balance is maintained.

I have set out three separate offences in the provisions: fraud, money laundering and false accounting. I think fraud and false accounting are probably self-explanatory, but the Government might have a bit of a question about money laundering. They might be thinking about the 2017 money laundering regulations, and regulation 92 in particular, where there is already a corporate offence where, with the consent or connivance of an officer of the company, an offence is committed or an offence is attributable to neglect on their part. What I would say gently to the Minister is that I do not think that cuts it. It still leaves significant evidential and prosecutorial challenges. The Financial Conduct Authority has, I think, used it vanishingly rarely. Therefore, I urge him very strongly to look carefully—I hope he will accept the thrust of my argument, even if he cannot accept the detail of my new clauses today—at bringing forward provision that covers money laundering as well as fraud. That would be my strong exhortation to him today.

Private International Law (Implementation of Agreements) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Robert Buckland and Jonathan Djanogly
Robert Buckland Portrait Robert Buckland
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I can assure my hon. Friend that not only do the Government place a very high premium upon the importance of accession to Lugano, but I personally have vested my own time in direct discussions with counterparts at the Commission and other member states of the EU. In fact, in Zagreb, at the final Justice and Home Affairs Council, I took the opportunity to discuss this at length with several other member states and, indeed, the then newly appointed Commissioner for Justice, and we had a very productive discussion.

My view and that of Her Majesty’s Government is very straightforward: the application for Lugano is a discrete matter. It is separate from the negotiations that are ongoing with regard to a future free trade agreement, and it should be treated as a separate matter. The time for ideology has gone. This is a time for us all to remember that the interests of the citizens that member states serve are paramount, and the interests of ensuring that civil judgments are enforced as swiftly as possible are clear. I call upon all interested parties to put those priorities first, and then hopefully we will see a swifter conclusion to the negotiations, but I welcome the warm support we have had from EFTA countries both prior and subsequent to our application.

Jonathan Djanogly Portrait Mr Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon) (Con)
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I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for giving way on this Lugano point. I agree with everything he says: it should be treated as a discrete treaty, separate from us leaving the EU, and it is very important for our future trade. But if that is the case, why does he not mention Lugano on the face of the Bill? By doing so, he could perhaps limit the scope of the wide statutory instrument powers—the so-called Henry VIII powers—that I think he will talk about bringing back. He would then have the specific Bill that would make the other place a bit happier.

Robert Buckland Portrait Robert Buckland
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I am always grateful to my hon. Friend, who served with distinction as a Justice Minister, for his long interest in these matters as a member of the profession. I did indeed consider whether this Bill should be a Lugano-specific Bill, but I took the view—and I will explain it in more detail in the body of my remarks—that, because of the narrow ambit of what we are seeking to achieve here, there was a necessary flexibility in allowing the United Kingdom Parliament, by affirmative resolution and therefore by debate on the Floor of the House, to determine whether particular future treaties could be incorporated into domestic law.

I do not regard these as Henry VIII powers. I accept the point that there is a distinction to be drawn in relation to the bringing forward of primary legislation, but as a matter of strict interpretation these are not powers that would allow us unilaterally to amend primary legislation, which, of course, is what a Henry VIII power is. These are powers that will allow us to use secondary legislation, but with the necessary parliamentary scrutiny before the incorporation in domestic law of these treaties. Let’s face it, while we were members of the EU, in large measure, because of the competence of the EU in this area, many of these arrangements and agreements took direct effect in our domestic law without any debate whatever. In my view, this actually represents a qualitative improvement and creates a consistency with that flexibility to allow us to make the sort of advances—I know he shares my view on those—which I referred to in my remarks to my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham. I am very grateful not just to him, but to all Members in the other place who gave the Bill detailed and careful consideration. However, we believe that it is constitutionally appropriate and proportionate to deploy delegated powers to implement the type of international agreement envisaged in the Bill.

This delegated power, in my strong view, is narrow, well defined and proportionate. Indeed, private international law itself is still a very narrowly defined area of law. It is familiar in scope and content to courts, legal advisers and experts in the field. The type of international agreement which can be implemented under the delegated power relates primarily to jurisdiction: rules that determine where a dispute is heard, rules that determine which country’s law applies, and rules on the recognition and enforcement of legal decisions or judgments in cross-border cases. No agreement could be implemented that was not related to these specific sorts of issues, which arise in relation to the resolution of cross-border disputes.

On that point, we recognise that the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee’s report on the Bill recommended the removal of the proposed delegated power, but it is our view that that is, respectfully, a misinterpretation of the breadth of the powers sought and the types of international agreements it can cover. Many of the examples given in its report that had previously been implemented by primary legislation are not actually private international law agreements in themselves. Although those agreements contain specific private international law provisions, they are wider in their overall scope and could not have been implemented using the proposed delegated power to be reintroduced into the Bill.

It was also said in the other place that the use of delegated powers to implement private international law agreements would be constitutionally unprecedented. With the greatest respect, I wholly disagree. There are delegated powers to implement new bilateral agreements on recognition and enforcement of civil judgments via Orders in Council under the Administration of Justice Act 1920, the Foreign Judgments (Reciprocal Enforcement) Act 1933, the Maintenance Orders (Facilities for Enforcement) Act 1920 and the Maintenance Orders (Reciprocal Enforcement) Act 1972. Indeed, the powers under the 1933 Act were used as recently as 2003 by the Labour Government to update a bilateral agreement with Israel relating to the recognition and enforcement of judgments, and extending that agreement to cover judgments of the Israeli magistrates courts. However, while it is important to look back at the precedents that exist, it is vital that we look forward, too. The powers contained in those Acts only allow us to implement bilateral agreements in this area. Frankly, the world has moved on significantly since the ’20s and ’30s, because most private international law agreements are now made on a multilateral basis. We need to ensure that the necessary powers exist to implement such agreements in a timely manner.

Parliamentary scrutiny procedures have moved on as well, and our proposals recognise this by requiring statutory instruments made under the delegated power to implement new agreements to be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure, which provides much more scrutiny than the Order in Council process. Any decision for our country to join a particular agreement in this area of law would also still be subject to successful completion of parliamentary scrutiny procedures under the provisions of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010—CRAG—which many of us got to know intimately in the context of last year’s machinations on Brexit.

The delegated power in the Bill would not alter the well-established approaches to parliamentary scrutiny of treaties and the process of approving ratification under CRAG. Instead, it would simply be a mechanism to draw down the resulting treaty obligations into domestic law in readiness for the ratification of the treaty. The Government recognise that Parliament has begun to strengthen the scrutiny procedures under CRAG, including, importantly, the establishment of the International Agreements Sub-Committee in April of this year under the chairmanship of Lord Goldsmith. We look forward to working with the Committee, including on the scrutiny of the private international law agreements.

Jonathan Djanogly Portrait Mr Djanogly
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Does my right hon. and learned Friend appreciate that that is the exact same Committee that has constantly been attacking CRAG as totally inadequate and unfit for purpose?

Robert Buckland Portrait Robert Buckland
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Indeed it has made some very trenchant comments about CRAG, and that is precisely why it is important that that Committee does its work on improving and enhancing the procedure. I welcome its work and we will actively engage and ensure that that is so.

The most pressing need for the delegated power is to implement what we hope to see—namely, the Lugano convention, which we have already discussed. As I have said, we still do not know the outcome of our application. It is being considered by the contracting parties to the convention, including the EU. It currently underpins our private international law relationship with Switzerland, Norway and Iceland, but could also be used to underpin our relationship with the EU after the end of the transition period. It would provide valuable certainty on cross-border recognition and the enforcement of civil and commercial judgments, as well as clarity on which country’s courts may hear a dispute.

Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Bill [Lords]

Debate between Robert Buckland and Jonathan Djanogly
2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion & Programme motion: House of Commons
Monday 8th June 2020

(3 years, 9 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Robert Buckland Portrait Robert Buckland
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I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I can make the assurance that I, in my position as Lord Chancellor, will do everything I can to reinforce the important messages about the values of family. As a Conservative, they are particularly important to me, but I know that Members of all parties in this House share those values and from their own experiences believe in the family.

I want to add this comment: it is because I believe in the family that I think these measures are the right approach. Some people might think that is contradictory, but I do not believe so, because I think it is our responsibility in the legal process to try to reduce conflict, because conflict leads to emotional difficulty. It can lead to damage. It can lead to serious consequences, not just for the adults in the relationship but, let us face it, the children, too. We owe it to them to minimise in our legal processes, rather than maximise, the damage that can be caused.

Jonathan Djanogly Portrait Mr Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon) (Con)
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One of the most important things for ensuring that families, when they do sadly break up, do so in an ordered way is an ordered financial process. We are one of the few countries in the world that I know about that does not have a process for pre and post-marital contracts. Does my right hon. and learned Friend not agree that this would have been the perfect opportunity to have brought in the wording that the Law Commission has already provided? It is sitting there and could be put into the Bill. Rather than leaving the courts to dictate the issue, this place should be dictating the issue. Will he consider that?

Robert Buckland Portrait Robert Buckland
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I am very grateful to my hon. Friend, who served for a considerable period in the Department I now have the honour of leading. He is right to talk about the financial consequences of breakdown. It is important to note the commitment made by my noble and learned Friend Lord Keen in the other place by way of a letter dated 16 March to Baroness Deech, which has now been placed in the Library of each House, that we will consider how a review of the law governing financial remedies provision on divorce may take place. I give him that undertaking.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Robert Buckland and Jonathan Djanogly
Tuesday 15th May 2012

(11 years, 10 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jonathan Djanogly Portrait Mr Djanogly
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It is very important to emphasise that the position for someone suffering from domestic violence remains absolutely unchanged—they will be able to get on-the-spot injunctive relief and that will be non-means-tested.

Robert Buckland Portrait Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
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T6. I warmly welcome the development of neighbourhood justice panels, and pilots are being developed in areas such as my constituency in Swindon. They should be dealing with low-level crimes in our community, but what interplay will there be between those panels and the role of the magistracy in our communities?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Robert Buckland and Jonathan Djanogly
Tuesday 13th March 2012

(12 years ago)

Commons Chamber
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Robert Buckland Portrait Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
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3. What his proposed timetable is for legislation to allow broadcasting of selected court proceedings.

Jonathan Djanogly Portrait The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Jonathan Djanogly)
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We are planning to legislate as soon as parliamentary time allows to permit broadcasting of selected court proceedings as part of our commitment to increasing transparency in public services. Initially, we will allow broadcasting of judgments in the Court of Appeal, and we expect to extend this to sentencing remarks in the Crown court in due course.

Robert Buckland Portrait Mr Buckland
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I thank the Minister for that answer. Will he confirm that information will be the watchword, not sensationalism, and that any conditions imposed will have that very much in mind?

Jonathan Djanogly Portrait Mr Djanogly
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Yes, I can assure my hon. Friend that we will not allow our courts to become places of public theatre. Victims, witnesses, defendants and jurors will not be filmed.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Robert Buckland and Jonathan Djanogly
Tuesday 13th December 2011

(12 years, 3 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jonathan Djanogly Portrait Mr Djanogly
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The hon. Gentleman’s expertise in this area is renowned, so perhaps I can write to him on the specifics of the cemetery in his constituency. I just point out to him that the Ministry of Justice has no responsibility for health and safety in local authority cemeteries.

Robert Buckland Portrait Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
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13. If he will bring forward proposals to extend the power of the Attorney-General to refer unduly lenient sentences to the Court of Appeal for crimes aggravated by hostility towards disabled people.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Debate between Robert Buckland and Jonathan Djanogly
Monday 31st October 2011

(12 years, 4 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jonathan Djanogly Portrait Mr Djanogly
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The hon. Gentleman makes the exact point that I would have made in response to him. Evidence is used in a trial, but the GP does not make the decision, he gives evidence. We see the trial as being the objective evidence, and that is what we suggest in the Bill.

Robert Buckland Portrait Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
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My hon. Friend makes proper points about the need for courts to make findings of fact. Does he accept, however, that there is a potential problem with regard to undertakings? In proceedings in which undertakings could be a way of sorting out the problem satisfactorily, those advising the parties involved could prejudice their clients’ ability to obtain legal aid in future if domestic violence rears its ugly head again. Will he look again at how we can manage those circumstances so that people are not put in that potentially prejudicial situation?

Jonathan Djanogly Portrait Mr Djanogly
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I am happy to consider the particular circumstances that my hon. Friend mentions on the subject of undertakings, but again we are talking about a situation that does not involve an objective test. It would be down to the word of the two people making the undertaking. In certain circumstances that may be correct, but in others it may not.

--- Later in debate ---
Robert Buckland Portrait Mr Buckland
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I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner), who speaks from professional and personal experience on these matters. I am profoundly grateful to him for his candour and passion. I am also grateful to the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd), a fellow practitioner from Wales, who has considerable experience of these matters.

I rise to reinforce some of the points that have been made about some aspects of the proposed reforms. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister will accept that it is difficult to define an exceptional case. By the very nature of the category that the Legal Services Commission uses to deal with exceptional cases, they are indefinable. I accept that he will therefore find it difficult to assure us categorically that all cases that cause proper concern—particularly the complex cases involving young children who have had difficulties at birth—will be covered by the Government’s proposals.

We are right to raise these concerns. Clinical negligence cases are somewhat unusual in that the expenditure is incurred at the beginning. The firms of solicitors dealing with such cases are often not the big firms that live in the City of London, but the firms of partners who have developed a degree of experience in such cases and who understand how to relate to the families of people who have suffered from alleged clinical negligence. However, such firms do not necessarily have the resources to enable them to spend lots of money on the preliminary medical investigations that are essential in preparing the ground in such cases.

I support the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), who, in his excellent speech, raised the possibility of producing a joint report, at the beginning of each case, for the NHS—the defendant—and the claimant. That is a good point to make, but we are not in that position yet; we are still in an adversarial position. My deep worry is that a lot of cases will go without the necessary representation or help because those firms do not have the resources to dip into their pockets and to pay the thousands of pounds that are needed to prepare a case for making a claim.

I speak from experience, having served as a member of a funding review panel for some 10 years, and having dealt with appeals made by solicitors against the refusal or revocation of legal aid certificates in cases of clinical negligence. It would be wrong to say that a carte blanche exists at the moment. Even now, it is not easy for solicitors to satisfy the Legal Services Commission. I want to ask the Government to think carefully about the observations made by Members on both sides of the House, and to hesitate before seeking to implement the full thrust of these proposals.

There are several ways of dealing with this question. The first would be the full retention of legal aid for such cases. Another would be its retention for those aged 18 or under who are making claims against the NHS for clinical negligence. A further option would be to allow the provision of legal funding for initial advice and assistance in the preparation of reports before the commencement of any proceedings. Such an option would not cover representation, but it would deal with the preliminary stages. I ask the Government to consider those alternatives very carefully. I know that this matter will be hotly debated in another place, where I am sure full account will be taken not only of what we have said here tonight but of any observations that are made there.

Jonathan Djanogly Portrait Mr Djanogly
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Let me first set out the scope of what we are talking about. Clinical negligence spend through legal aid in 2009-10 was about £17 million, consisting of around £1 million for legal help and around £16 million for representation. Closed-case volumes for legal representation in clinical negligence in 2009-10 were just over 2,300. It is estimated that removing clinical negligence from scope will save around £17 million per annum on legal help and representation, taking account of the exceptional funding regime and the estimated income from the supplementary legal aid scheme. Continued spend of £6 million through exceptional funding of the £16 million currently spent on representation in clinical negligence is foreseen. NHS figures for 2010-11 show that 82% of clinical negligence cases, where the funding method is known, were funded by means other than legal aid. That is the current situation.

The NHS Litigation Authority figures for 2010-11 show that of 2,002 legally aided claims, some 718 were claims for children, which represented 36% of claims funded through legal aid. Annexe B of the Government’s impact assessment on the reforms to conditional fee agreements sets out estimated savings of £50 million to the NHS Litigation Authority as a result of abolishing recoverability of success fees, and after-the-event insurance premiums.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Robert Buckland and Jonathan Djanogly
Tuesday 28th June 2011

(12 years, 9 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jonathan Djanogly Portrait The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Jonathan Djanogly)
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We have worked closely with other Departments to examine the impact of our proposals, and that is ongoing.

Robert Buckland Portrait Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
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T8. I welcome my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State’s commitment to reducing reoffending rates. Does he agree that increasing the scope of judicial discretion, as outlined in the Bill, will go a long way to help to achieve that?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Robert Buckland and Jonathan Djanogly
Tuesday 29th March 2011

(13 years ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jonathan Djanogly Portrait Mr Djanogly
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Not necessarily. It is true that individuals featuring protected characteristics are over-represented in the civil legal aid client base and as such any reform to civil legal aid is likely to have a greater impact on those groups when compared with the population as a whole, but that is a function of demographics. When affected clients are compared with unaffected clients, proportions are very similar.

Robert Buckland Portrait Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
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Will my hon. Friend take on board all the careful representations he has received about the potential problem of using domestic violence as the criterion for granting legal aid in family law cases?

Jonathan Djanogly Portrait Mr Djanogly
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The Government’s position is that domestic violence should be the gateway to receiving legal aid in relation to family law. However, my hon. Friend has asked specifically about the definition and I am pleased to tell him that many representations have come in on this issue and that we are going to consider them very carefully when we make our final report.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Robert Buckland and Jonathan Djanogly
Tuesday 15th February 2011

(13 years, 1 month ago)

Commons Chamber
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Robert Buckland Portrait Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
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I am encouraged by the Minister’s emphasis on cross-departmental co-operation. Will he assure me that he and his colleagues will do everything they can to maintain the continuation of services such as the Wiltshire law centre and the citizens advice bureau in my constituency, which often find that legal and social issues cannot be distinguished?

Jonathan Djanogly Portrait Mr Djanogly
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My hon. Friend says that some centres find that legal and social issues cannot be distinguished, but that depends on how they are funded. For instance, only 50% of CABs receive any Ministry of Justice funding whatever. That very much depends on whether a centre offers general or legal help. However, I repeat that we realise that advice provision needs to be looked at on a cross-departmental basis. We appreciate that there is an issue for not-for-profits, and we are determined to address it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Robert Buckland and Jonathan Djanogly
Tuesday 11th January 2011

(13 years, 2 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Robert Buckland Portrait Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
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Before any decision is made to withdraw legal aid for families dealing with special educational needs tribunals, will my right hon. and hon. Friends work with the Department for Education, particularly in the light of its proposed Green Paper on the reform of SEN procedure, to ensure that the families of children with SEN get all the help and support that they deserve?

Jonathan Djanogly Portrait Mr Djanogly
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We have been co-ordinating with the Department for Education on this matter, and the joint views will be going into the Green Paper.