Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Debate between Steve Barclay and Elfyn Llwyd

Monday 31st October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Llwyd]

I would speculate and say that it is probably to do with management rather than protecting individual practitioners, but I cannot give any assurances on that. What I am saying here today is common knowledge out there; it is not a new allegation that I have dreamed up just to try to grab a headline at this late stage. [Interruption.] To answer the hon. Gentleman’s question honestly, I do not know, but I would guess that it is a management issue, because whenever there is a claim, it is reported to management immediately—on the very first day, I expect.

[Stephen Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

If it is a management issue, then that, as we have seen in the Public Accounts Committee, goes to the issue of accountability and governing structure. Should not the hon. Gentleman therefore be focusing his remarks on how those issues are tackled rather than trying to perpetuate an ever-increasing legal aid bill, which amounts to fixing the symptoms of the problem rather than addressing its cause?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Llwyd]

If the hon. Gentleman will bear with me, I will go back to my script; he may be interested to hear this part because it deals with the point that he rightly makes. If there were a duty on responsible bodies such as health authorities immediately to come clean with evidence, there would probably have been no need for these amendments because we would not be in the position that we are in. Side by side, on a parallel basis, we need to ensure that all health authorities, and any public bodies, are responsible in their dealings with the public; that goes without saying.

There are about 1 million adverse occurrences or accidents in the NHS every year, and about 10,000 lead to action being taken against the NHS. It is, therefore, a big area of law. In the earlier debate, the point was made that 66% of immigration appeals succeed because the initial decision was bad. In this instance, there would be far fewer long, drawn-out cases if all health authorities and public bodies were under a duty to disclose fully and urgently, and there would not be the astronomical costs that some of these cases result in.

[Stephen Barclay]

The right hon. Gentleman’s remarks are addressing supply, not demand. He is not addressing why there are so many clinical negligence cases, nor why the insurance that is charged is going up exponentially. There are existing rules for special severance payments for whistleblowers but, as was found in the National Audit Office’s report in 2005 and the Public Accounts Committee’s recommendations in 2006, there is still a problem in the way whistleblowers are tackled in the NHS and in the way such cases are dragged out. That is a failure of the previous Government. It is to that failure that he should address his remarks; not to the fact that we continue to fix a problem that is growing exponentially year on year.

[Mr Llwyd]

The number of cases each year because of accidents or negligence has not really increased. It has been around the 10,000 mark for many years. There has not been a sudden rise in specious claims in this area. This is not a growing market. I hear what the hon. Gentleman says and I agree that we should ensure that there is far better practice.

Such cases are capable of being resolved far earlier and without recourse to litigation. Medium-sized cases are often resolved by the hospital or health authority without resorting to litigation, and that is fine. However, in large cases, such as where a child is brain-damaged at birth, there is no appetite from either side to settle it in the hospital. Such cases are often extremely expensive because the child’s life has been ruined for their entire existence. That is why I raise these matters.

I hope that the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) will make a contribution because I know that he, too, has been campaigning on this issue. I will confine my remarks to those few points.

Courts Service

Debate between Steve Barclay and Elfyn Llwyd

Wednesday 14th July 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

May I declare an interest as a former solicitor and a member of the Bar? I have practised in every one of the courts that are under threat in mid and north Wales and I can speak about the quality of those buildings and of the service available in them. I congratulate the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) on securing the debate, and I share the concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) and others who have spoken.

My theme is access to local justice. I am concerned about the proposed closure of Pwllheli magistrates court. I have the honour to represent one of the two largest constituencies in Wales in terms of geography; indeed, it is probably among the top five or 10 in the whole UK, stretching 100 miles from north to south and 90 miles from east to west. It currently has two magistrates courts, one of which is under threat, and that is an abysmal prospect for those with any notion of local justice.

I heard what the hon. Member for Ceredigion said about amalgamating magistrates court areas. I can assure him that people from Pembrokeshire will be required to travel all the way up to north Ceredigion; indeed, people are already doing that in the area that I represent. Consequently, justices of the peace are not putting their names forward for appointment, and good people who could do a decent, good job for their communities are not doing so. It is not a coincidence that we have an advert for 30 district judges. It is disturbing but true that the proposals will be one of the nails in the coffin of the lay magistracy, and we should not run away from that fact.

One thing about being in the House for a while is that one sometimes has a feeling of déjà vu. In the 1992 Parliament, the Blaenau Ffestiniog court in my constituency was threatened. We appealed, but, fortunately, a general election intervened, and there was then a new Minister. What came out of that process, however, was that closing the court offered a marginal saving of £11,000, but that did not take into account the added travelling time for solicitors, barristers, police, JPs, probation officers and, in youth cases, social service workers. When that was taken into account, there was no saving. What makes all this worse is that about £10,000 or £15,000 was spent on the building a few months ago to make it DDA-compliant, but it is now being shut down.

I hope that we have a proper consultation, and I echo all the questions that the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane) has just asked. I also ask the Minister to tell me how many cases have been moved from Pwllheli magistrates in the past three years, where they ended up and how many hearings were involved. Why is it considered appropriate for one of the largest constituencies in Wales to have one magistrates court? For heaven’s sake, it is ridiculous.

When I qualified back in the mists of time—in the mid-70s—there were six magistrates courts in Meirionnydd. Arguably, that might have been too many, but we now face the prospect of having just one magistrates court in a far larger area than the whole of Meirionnydd. I am deeply concerned.

[Stephen Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

Like me, the hon. Gentleman represents a large rural constituency. Does he find it paradoxical that new housing developments take place in rural constituencies such as ours, but that services are centralised in the cities and moved away from rural areas, with a total disregard for long-term population growth? That is the same long-term plan on which the consultation is premised.

[Mr Llwyd]

That is absolutely right. That is contributing to rural poverty and to difficulties in obtaining services in rural areas, and we are talking in this debate about a service.

I am also concerned about the notion that somebody from Aberdaron in the west of my constituency can get to the proposed centre in Caernarfon by bus by 10 o’clock in the morning. I doubt whether that is possible, but if it were, there is the likely and plausible scenario that they will meet witnesses on that same bus. What happens next? Interference with justice, and perhaps even violence—I do not know. I am concerned about that. I hope that this is meant to be a proper consultation, but I have my doubts.

The hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) made a few points. It is proposed to close Llangefni magistrates court and Llangefni county court and to move things to Holyhead. The consultation document says that Holyhead is 20 miles away by bus. Curiously, although the magistrates court in Llangefni is opposite the county court—they are within yards of each other—the document tells us that it is 20.6 miles from the magistrates in Llangefni to the magistrates in Holyhead and that that costs £2.60 on the bus, but that it is 20 miles to Holyhead from across the road and costs 60p less on the same bus. I do not think that the documents are at all robust. We want proper, robust figures; we want the justification for these damaging closures. However, I end by saying that in my nearly 20 years in this place, I have not yet seen a serious consultation take place in August.