House of Commons Hansard Debates for 31 Mar 1993

Sir Nicholas Fairbairn : The hon. Gentleman has mentioned criminal legal aid. As I would expect of a man of perspicacity, he has clearly read the proceedings of the Select Committee. I made a number of suggestions as to how the criminal system could be altered to save vast amounts of money. I have made those suggestions frequently. I trust that the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends will join us in doing that because there is a massive waste of money, time and resources.

Mr. McFall : I agree with the hon. and learned Member. From memory, I think that he told Lord Fraser that many defence lawyers asked clients to plead not guilty, and that that was one area where improvements could be made. The noble Lord decided not to follow the hon. and learned Gentleman down that path. Let us hope that he decides to do so and that we get the savings that the hon. and learned Gentleman has talked about.

Mr. Menzies Campbell : Yet again, the hon. Gentleman is making a most perceptive contribution to a debate on home affairs in Scotland. Does he agree that the cost of legal aid must be related directly to the cost of litigation? If we had a full-scale, wide-ranging review of the civil legal system in Scotland to reduce the costs of litigation, we would immediately bring about circumstances in which we could reduce the cost of legal aid as well.

Mr. McFall : I agree entirely with the hon. and learned Gentleman. As I said earlier, no mention was made of the situation prior to November so there could be no contributions or advice given to the Scottish Office. There was no justification for that.

It is tempting to see legal aid as a lawyer's issue. As a non-lawyer, that does not concern me. Undoubtedly, there are fat-cat lawyers who make some money, not on legal aid

Column 374

but maybe elsewhere. Certainly, lawyers do not suffer from collective shyness, so they can make their own case on that. I am here to talk on behalf of people other than lawyers.

Mr. Barry Porter (Wirral, South) : I must declare an interest. Some years ago, I made a modest--indeed, humble--living as a solicitor, part of which came from the legal aid fund. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Perhaps he would care to address this point : some members of the profession, either solicitors or barristers, have milked the system. I shall give an example. In the past, a simple shoplifting case was dealt with by taking instructions from a client and doing the trial, which would be two hearings at the most. One now gets one, two, three or four hearings or remands, and then perhaps one goes to the Crown court. That is the reality. Some lawyers take advantage of the system and have brought this on themselves.

Mr. McFall : I agree that some lawyers take advantage. It is for Parliament to ensure that that system does not prevail in the future.

Why am I arguing at the Dispatch Box? I am here to argue on behalf of the potentially 250,000 Scots who will be affected by the Government's proposals. Who are they? Some would be tempted to say that they are not the very poor, but those who are slightly above the income support level or on moderate incomes.

Sadly, the hon. Member for Ayr has left the Chamber. Perhaps he does not care what he says today, but I care about what he said last week and yesterday. Last week at the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs, the hon. Gentleman said rather adequately, but perhaps mistakenly from his viewpoint :

"I suggest that at present there are many, many people who just cannot afford civil legal aid--people on what you would describe as moderate means and reasonably well off, as seen by some in the community, but people who just cannot afford to go to law on civil matters."

We are here to argue on behalf of those people today. Who are they? The hon. Member for Moray (Mrs. Ewing) says women, and I agree. Last year, 23,000 people in Scotland received legal aid. Almost 19, 000 were family law cases. The proposed changes will hit women and children the hardest. Those affected will include victims of domestic violence, the child caught between angry parents, the person trapped in an abusive relationship, the childless couple who want to adopt and the child abused by an estranged parent. Those people will be involved. Such cases are often emergencies which need immediate court action. Almost all such cases are started by women who have part-time or low-paid employment. The employment statistics published yesterday graphically describe that 22 per cent. of the population work part time and many more than 22 per cent. are low paid.

The Government talk about eligibility and afford-ability. I would contend that they are two different things. Anyone can book into the Savoy but not everyone can pay for it. That is the difference between eligibility and affordability. The poor and the needy are not the same : the need is greatest for those on moderate incomes and the consequences for them are greater.

Would it not be ironic that if the cuts go through it will be easier for a man to get criminal legal aid to defend a charge of wife or child assault than for a woman to get civil

Column 375

legal aid to secure the safety of herself and her children in her home? That is iniquitous, but it is the situation that we shall have.

Mr. Malcolm Chisholm (Edinburgh, Leith) : I expect that my hon. Friend has read the report on domestic violence of the Select Committee on Home Affairs which, with a Conservative majority, said :

"In the case of domestic violence, we have no doubt that the new restriction on legal aid will mean that the remedies of the civil courts will effectively be removed for a very large number of victims."

It is a disgrace that when I questioned the Secretary of State for Scotland about the matter on 3 March I was told that the changes would have no effect on the eligibility of that category.

Mr. McFall : My hon. Friend makes my point. Where will women in such situations go? They will go to the local authority for housing. Local authorities already face sharp rises in applications for housing under homelessness legislation. They are already under pressure and stretched. With the increased demand, they are likely to raise the level of proof required by women and others to establish homelessness. Some local authorities insist that women start court proceedings to put the husband out of the home and want affidavits and proof from solicitors.

Where do women go at present? Do they go to the Women's Aid Federation? In Glasgow in 1992, 1,000 women were turned away from the federation. In Scotland in 1992, 22,000 people went to the federation for assistance. The Women's Aid Federation freely admits that it could not adequately cope with that situation. What are the Government doing about it? They are condemning women and children to stay in violent relationships. It would not be over- dramatising to say that someone somewhere may be killed under such pressure --it could be a woman attacking her husband or a husband attacking his wife --because the Government have decided to sit on their hands and have people sitting in their homes with nowhere to go. What will be the effect on children? The growth of children will be stunted. What will be the effect of that situation on children's personalities? The Government have no answer.

Many bodies in Scotland have submitted their views to the Government and they all went unheeded. The Scottish Association for Mental Health contacted me yesterday-- [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Milton Keynes, North-East (Mr. Butler) says that he is not surprised. Is that sympathetic or what we consider pejorative? Is that contempt for the Scottish Association for Mental Health? If it is, I will allow the hon. Gentleman to intervene. It was a despicable comment.

The Scottish Association for Mental Health contacted me because it wished its clients and the people involved to be catered for. I will give the hon. Gentleman an example. The association is concerned about the group of people who receive invalidity benefits and who could be badly affected by the changes--people who are unable to work because of mental health problems who could be entitled to invalidity benefit if they have paid the appropriate contributions.

The invalidity benefit ranges from £55.15 for a person over 60 to £65.70 for someone under 40. Under the present rules, older people are exempt from making any contribution for legal costs if their income is below the qualifying limit of £3,060 per annum. However, younger

Column 376

people who receive the higher level of benefit would have to make a contribution of £89. Under the proposed changes, older people will earn more than the annual qualifying limit of £2,293 per annum and will have to pay £200 towards the cost of a mental health hearing while younger people on invalidity benefit will have to pay £300.85. To people on such an income level, that figure is unthinkable. I must condemn Lord Fraser when he said that £300.85 is a small contribution. In our experience, £300 represents a large, if not impossible, contribution for a person earning slightly more than £65 a week. The stress of having to pay such an amount can be enormous for some people.

Sir Nicholas Fairbairn : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. McFall : I think that I have given way enough to the hon. and learned Gentleman.

People resort to the courts in extreme circumstances, often when there is no other means of salvaging the wreckage of their lives. They go to the courts when they are treated unfairly and they expect society to help in redressing the balance. In short, they go to seek justice. That is recognised in a letter which I received this week from the Episcopalian Bishop of Glasgow and Galloway. He said that we as Christians have a special duty to be a voice for those who are the least noticed in society. We are concerned about the danger that is posed to the civil rights of disabled and disadvantaged groups, who under these cuts will no longer be eligible for legal aid in civil actions. I suggest that Conservative Members read the reports of the Select Committees on Home Affairs and on Scottish Affairs dealing with legal aid. They underline the point made by the bishop. In short, people are looking for justice. Throughout the ages, every citizen of a civilised society has had the fundamental right to expect help from civil authorities to achieve justice. By their proposals, the Government are excluding a section of society from one of the basic rights of citizenship.

I began by referring to the autumn statement, and I shall finish with the remarks of the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. The right hon. Gentleman is a confident young Cabinet Minister who deigned to appear on "Newsnight" on 12 November. He said :

"Legal aid is not a high priority for this Government." That statement fills us--the Opposition--with despair. More important, it fills with despair millions of people who are begging for justice or for access to the courts to secure justice. The Government's attitude will blight and possibly wreck their lives. That is why we shall vigorously oppose the Government on this issue.

Several hon. Members rose --

Madam Deputy Speaker : Order. Many hon. Members have expressed their wish to speak in the debate. I ask that those who catch my eye exercise some self-restraint in relation to the length of their speeches.

5.1 pm

Sir Ivan Lawrence (Burton) : First, I declare an interest as a practising barrister who derives some income from legal aid.

Column 377

In the autumn statement on 12 November, my noble Friend the Lord Chancellor announced that his proposals would curb the rise of legal aid costs. His proposals were greeted with horror. On 3 February they were attacked as

"draconian, deplorable and wrong in principle"

by the Lord Chief Justice. On 4 February, the Daily Mirror thundered :

"Law aid axe puts millions at risk."

The Times , with traditional understatement, stated, "Legal aid plans opposed." On 6 February, The Guardian asserted that the plans

"would deprive 7 million of free legal aid and impose increased charges on a further 7 million."

The next day, on Sunday 7 February, The Observer headline read : "No justice for 12 million if Mackay cuts legal aid."

Hundreds of solicitors wrote to hon. Members on both sides of the House. They were reported in the newspapers as saying that 14 million would be excluded from access to legal aid, that justice would be too expensive for all but the rich and the destitute, and that in a criminal trial

"you might as well plead guilty because you will not be able to defend your case properly."

They alleged, apparently, that the disabled and the sick would be denied legal aid if their incomes came to over £61 a week. The House was lobbied by members of the Save Legal Aid campaign, which was supported by about 40 organisations, including citizens advice bureaux, Shelter, the Trades Union Congress, the British Association of Social Workers, Age Concern and the Bar Council. Almost everyone having attacked the controversial proposals, The House Magazine reported that

"Lord MacKay of Clashfern must have felt like a heavily impaled dartboard."

As there was clearly public alarm and as the job of the Select Committee on Home Affairs is to scrutinise the work of the Home Office, the Northern Ireland Office and the Lord Chancellor's Department, the Committee decided to examine the proposals as quickly as it could and to report to the House before this debate. That we speedily did on 9 March, three weeks ago. I hope that hon. Members will now be more fully informed. We took oral evidence-- [Interruption.] Opposition Members will be none the wiser, but they will be more fully informed.

The Committee took oral evidence from both branches of the legal profession and from the Lord Chancellor on 24 February. We, the Committee, read written memoranda sent to us by many organisations and individuals. We would have taken more evidence if we had had time to do so.

We concluded that the quantification of the numbers of those who would be deprived of legal aid was subjective, depending on what it took someone who was called upon to make a contribution to decide not to pursue the matter. We concluded, however, that the eligibility cuts would deprive some ordinary people of the access that they now enjoy to the law. It seemed, in practical terms, that as many as 150, 000 people would not receive legal aid, including some of the 100,000 who would be cut from the green form scheme. In short, the numbers deprived would be nothing like the 14 million mentioned in the alarmist allegations. I was surprised that the hon. Member for

Column 378

Dumbarton (Mr. McFall) echoed those allegations. As 14 million would not seek access to the courts, it is absurd to say that 14 million will be deprived of anything.

It was clear also that the sick and the disabled with incomes of more than £61 a week would not suffer because disposable income would be assessed, not gross income stemming from whatever benefits they receive.

We accept that the Lord Chancellor is faced with a legal aid budget that is apparently spiralling out of control. The cost of legal aid has risen from less than £500 million in 1988 to over £1.1 billion in 1992, a rise of 135 per cent. It seems that the budget is likely to increase to £2 billion by 1995-96 if nothing is done. That would be a rise of 68 per cent. in the provision of civil legal aid when the retail prices index has risen by only 27 per cent.

Mr. Edward Garnier (Harborough) : Does my hon. and learned Friend remember paragraph 23 of the report, which states :

"The Lord Chancellor emphasised to us that the limits for free and contributory legal aid and advice related to disposable income, a point which some of his critics appear to have overlooked. Disposable income is calculated by allowing costs against gross income. We were told that allowable costs included tax, national insurance, dependants, maintenance payments, rent or mortgage, council tax, some other housing costs, fares to work, subscriptions to unions or professional bodies, pension fund contributions and (on a discretionary basis) the costs of child-minding, repayment of loans for home improvements and school fees."?

Does my hon. and learned Friend accept that disposable income is a much smaller sum than gross income and other forms of net income?

Sir Ivan Lawrence : I thank my hon. Friend for filling out the details of that which I was skirting.

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman (Lancaster) : A couple with two children with an income of £21,000 might well qualify for contributory legal aid when the deductions are taken into account.

Sir Ivan Lawrence : I thank my hon. Friend for filling out the details even further. As I am trying to keep my speech short, I hope that I shall be forgiven if I do not go into all the details. We, the Select Committee, concluded that the cuts were unfortunate. We found that they did not sit easily with the Government's strategy to make the consumer and the citizen generally more aware of his or her rights and more tenacious of them. In our view, the legal aid scheme exists to ensure that ordinary people can have the protection of the law. It gives many people access to the law and underpins justice and the freedom of the individual. It has obviously been a great success. More and more people have been helped by the scheme. The numbers have risen from 3.14 million five years ago to an estimated 4.1 million for 1995, even after the Lord Chancellor's changes.

The Committee looked ahead to the immediate future. My colleagues and I were struck that no one seemed to know in enough detail why the costs were rising so rapidly. We suggested that urgent work needed to be undertaken to find the answers.

We thought it a great pity that the legal profession and the Lord Chancellor's Department had not quite got their acts together. We hoped that out report might help to bang heads together so that both sides might co-operate in undertaking an inquiry into the scope for savings and efficiency in the way in which legal services are delivered

Column 379

and how the courts operate. Radical changes might be the result. We felt that both sides needed to be prepared to commit themselves to such changes. But both the professions and the Lord Chancellor seem willing to start the process. We welcome that.

Mr. Alex Carlile : While we are talking about civil legal aid, does the hon. and learned Gentleman agree that virtually every bill for civil legal aid, whether from solicitors or counsel, is scrutinised by an official who is appointed essentially by the Government so that there is far less scope for fraud in the civil legal aid scheme? Does he agree that, in the absence of any evidence of lawyers acting improperly in claiming their fees, the scheme should continue much as before? Does he further agree that there is an enormous amount of room for efficiency savings in the courts? For example, pre-trial reviews are effective in civil cases.

Sir Ivan Lawrence : Yes, I accept what the hon. and learned Gentleman says. We did not find any fraud in the legal professions. We probably did not investigate for long enough to discover any. We were looking at what is happening now and what immediately could be done about it.

We felt that although it was too late to do anything about the orders that we are debating today, which are due to come into force on 12 April, if agreed savings were found between the professions and the Lord Chancellor's Department, it might be possible to restore the cuts in eligibility in real terms in the future. We said that the Government should set themselves that goal. If not, they would not achieve their manifesto commitment to give people of limited means greater access to the law, not less access to the law. Greater access means providing advice and assistance either free or at a price which they can afford.

We had a particular anxiety about the Lord Chancellor's proposals to end the contributory part of the green form scheme. That could affect access to legal services for up to 100,000 people, just at the time when it is most necessary because it can head off many legal actions, if the advice achieves a certain result. We could not see what objection there was to people making a contribution, if they could afford some, but not all of the costs.

We could not see any convincing reason why the Lord Chancellor proposed to leave the scheme in existence in Scotland for tapering off contributions, but to end it completely in England and Wales so that people will have no access to the green form scheme if their income is more than about £61 a week. Such discrimination in favour of the Scots by a Scot we found to be carrying kith and kinship too far. We recommended that such discrimination should cease. We are, after all, a united country.

We noticed in passing that a large part of the legal aid budget was eaten up by VAT. As VAT merely transfers public funds from the Treasury to the Lord Chancellor's Department and back to the Treasury, it serves no practical purpose except to complicate matters and boost bureaucratic costs. We were pleased to hear that the Lord Chancellor thought its removal worthy of consideration.

Of course, there is a great deal more wrong with the legal aid system. We had time to examine and report on only some of it. As the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) said, we make a lot more law in

Column 380

Parliament than we used to. We give more people more rights and make people more aware of them. It should not surprise us that they take advantage of that and, therefore, claim more legal aid. However, too much money is being wasted. The money could often be better allocated. Furthermore, there is an inherent injustice about a system which encourages one party to a legal dispute to take legal action confident in the belief that it will cost him nothing or hardly anything, against another party who has to pay all his costs and who, if he wins, will receive not a penny of damages or costs. Justice should be open to all, not just the rich and the poor but the person in between.

We simply do not know how many people with a good case never bring it or defend themselves with it because they cannot afford to do so in case they lose and they cannot be helped by legal aid. That is the other side of the coin to those who are unjustly treated by the system because they cannot afford to contribute to legal aid, or because legal aid is simply not available. On that issue neither I nor the members of the Home Affairs Select Committee could offer immediate constructive suggestions. The matter needs a full and detailed study. Perhaps something will come out of the Runciman royal commission on that issue.

But many avenues for saving legal aid waste should be explored. Other hon. Members will want to speak, so I shall mention them only briefly. First, instead of paying criminal legal aid with inadequate assessment of means, we could be much more thorough. If a case is likely to cost the tax payer millions of pounds, those involved in large criminal inquiries might be invited to produce a thorough breakdown of their means and assets, with the assistance of a state investigator, before they are awarded hundreds of thousands of pounds in legal aid. We might be surprised how many people would not choose to have their affairs investigated and would either pay the lawyers privately or decide to plead guilty whereas if they had got a free defence they might have had nothing to lose by pleading not guilty. Secondly, in civil cases, the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 provided for conditional fees. That provision has not been brought into effect. It might help some. Clients may negotiate with solicitors a no-win, no-fee arrangement. The Bar is chary about that, but the provision is on the statute book, so let us introduce it. Thirdly, a contingency fund could be set up, financed by a levy on all damages won in civil cases. The hon. Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Bermingham) made the point persuasively in the Committee's questioning. Most civil claims end in success or at any rate end in one party receiving a substantial amount in damages. The levy could be used to relieve the burden on the legal aid fund. Such a scheme was set up in Hong Kong in 1984 and became self-financing after four years.

Fourthly, more use could be made of private legal insurance taken out by employers on behalf of employees similar to BUPA in medicine, the AA and RAC schemes and the Legal Protection Group, which is part of Sun Alliance. The more that such insurance was taken out, the less burden there wo of private solicitors in a particular area. I understand how small solicitors feel about that. Obviously, they should not be threatened. However, there are plenty of parts of the country,

Column 381

especially following the Government's reforms of the professions, where there is simply no solicitor. The salaried service operating from law centres would obviously be sensible.

Sixthly, the Government are actively considering the franchising of legal advice as a contract between the Legal Aid Board and the franchisee, for block advice in a large number of cases at an all-in fee. That seems sensible.

Seventhly, we could resolve disputes, especially in matrimonial matters, without the need for confrontational legal appearances in court. Relate has recommended that system and achieved some success in it.

Eighthly, we could do more to expand the use of the small claims courts, where legal expenses are minimal and rough justice--not always so rough--is often, if not frequently, obtained.

I could go on. The field of possible legal reform is large. As the Select Committee reported, this corner--the financing of the law--is particularly fertile. Let us all--the politicians, the Lord Chancellor, his Department, the legal professions and the courts administration, judges included--seek to improve the system. The system can be improved. There is a large area in which those improvements could take place.

I finish by quoting the last paragraph of our report on page xxvii. It says :

"Our inquiry has demonstrated that unless the whole legal aid system is fully reviewed and all the relevant parties act together and constructively in undertaking that review, cuts will continue to be forced on governments. The principal sufferer will then inevitably be the one person everyone seeks to help--the person of modest means with a legitimate case, who seeks the protection of the law." 5.18 pm

Mr. Gerald Bermingham (St. Helens, South) : I am grateful to you for calling me so early in the debate, Madam Deputy Speaker. I intend to be brief, and I declare an interest as a practising lawyer. I served on the Select Committee which drew up the report. The cuts--I use the word "cuts"- -in the number of people who will be eligible for legal aid were perhaps untimely. There are ways in which the matter could have been put off to enable people to examine the system. It occurred to me when the evidence was being taken, as it did to many members of the Committee, that one simple way of reducing the cost would be not to pay VAT on legal aid payments. The Government should not pay it out simply to get it back six weeks later. It is a waste of money. It causes bureaucracy. It costs money. It is waste. There are various other matters. For example, the Lord Chancellor's Department did not appear to have taken into account the fact that the number of people charged in police stations during the last quarter of last year fell by some 12 per cent. Indeed, as the newspapers have reported, the number of reportable crimes has also fallen by 4 per cent. Therefore, there will be a reduction in the volume of cases going through the courts. Even now, court rooms are standing empty in major magistrates courts and legal aid certificates are not being granted because there are not the cases for them. Criminal legal aid forms by far the largest proportion of the legal aid bill. As the number of cases is decreasing, the amount being paid out in legal aid in 1992-93 will also decrease.

Column 382

The Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department (Mr. John M. Taylor) : Does the hon. Gentleman accept that, in the fairltypical metropolitan jurisdiction of Solihull, from where I come, there is already clear evidence that completions of caseload in January 1993 are up on January 1992? Therefore, the hon. Gentleman's comparison of last quarters could be deceptive. Incidentally, I attach no more importance to my statistic than I do to his ; I measure it with the same caution as I would the last quarters.

Mr. Bermingham : It appears that Solihull is a criminal place. The evidence from north London, Merseyside and elsewhere throughout the country goes the other way--but time will tell. The point is that it is the sort of factor that has never been studied. Indeed, we have never studied in depth the way in which legal aid is administered and where spending occurs. We all have anecdotes ; I could keep the House up all night with them, but I do not intend to do that. It would serve no purpose, because there is no hard evidence. That will come only from a detailed and efficient inquiry into these matters. Therefore, my first request to the Minister is that such an inquiry be put in hand urgently.

In my experience of criminal legal aid, I have never understood why it is necessary to wait until the last possible moment to find out whether somebody has pleaded guilty or not guilty in what is a standard case. There are enormous savings to be made in that and other areas. For example, in a magistrates court, it is often to the advantage of a defendant to plead early, if he intends to plead. Very often, a good duty solicitor can assess within the first few hours whether in a simple case--I am not talking about complicated cases--there is to be a plea. If there is, the matter should be dealt with on the spot.

Unfortunately, there has been a slight complication because of the Criminal Justice Act 1991, which has led to some sentencing problems. That has increased the cost of legal aid. However, with good will on all sides we could rectify the mistakes in the Act. I do not think that there is a lawyer in the country who would say that the Act is anything other than flawed.

It is wrong that the overall effect of the proposals is to attack civil legal aid. Criminal legal aid will emerge largely unscathed--although there may be a little more difficulty in getting expert witnesses and so on-- while the real cut will be in eligibility for civil legal aid. I made similar points in Committee, and they are in the report. Some 92 per cent. of personal injury cases succeed, with recovery running at about £2 million a week in lost benefits, with the likelihood that that figure will rise. That is money going back to the state.

The overall cost of accident claims last year was a paltry £11 million. That is nothing. However, the proposals will affect a number of people--I will not play the numbers game--who will no longer be able to go to a lawyer and get legal aid to bring an accident claim. Of course, if that person was either a passenger in a car or had been knocked down, he would still be covered : many lawyers do not even bother to apply for legal aid for such cases, because their costs following the event are assured.

I met a number of solicitors in St. Helens last Saturday and discussed the issues with them. They were worried that the cases that would be most affected would be those with claims of about £1,000 or £2,000. The people who will

Column 383

suffer under the eligibility cuts are the very people who want to bring such claims. They will be very much under attack.

Mr. Jonathan Evans (Brecon and Radnor) : No doubt the hon. Gentleman is aware that there is speculation that the arbitration system in the small claims court may be extended upwards to cover the claims to which he has referred. Does he have any observations on that?

Mr. Bermingham : I have only one brief observation. A solicitor that I met in St. Helens on Saturday, who is not of my political persuasion, said that that would close his litigation department. He said that, once those claims were taken away from him, his litigation department could not survive, because it does not attract the big claims. We must remember that many solicitors in rural areas and small towns rely for their livelihoods-- and they are not the world's richest--on such claims, where they win their costs. In the end, there is no real cost to the taxpayer.

My cri de coeur to the Minister is that two groups will suffer most from what is being proposed--first, battered wives and other victims of violence ; secondly, children. Those are the two groups where the greatest damage will be done. I hope that, for once, the House will put politics aside and think of human beings and the victims of abuse, domestic violence, car accidents, work accidents and so on. Let us all stand back, albeit for a few months, while we thoroughly investigate these matters and find where the savings can be made--and both professional bodies acknowledge that there are savings to be made within the system. Let us deny these regulations today ; they can always be brought back before us after the inquiry, if they are justified.

I have a sneaking feeling that, once we begin to nibble away at eligibility, it will be nibbled and gone for ever. I ask the House and the Minister to think of the 100,000 or 125,000 people who will suffer. That is an incredible number. How much human misery is there in that figure? For once, let us not be partisan. We should stand back, gather the evidence and then act with realism and decision. I happen to believe that we could increase the net for legal aid without it costing any more money. That would bring a little more civilisation to many more people.

5.27 pm

Dame Jill Knight (Birmingham, Edgbaston) : My speech folows those of two colleagues who, like me, are members of the Select Committee on Home Affairs--my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence) and the hon. Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Bermingham).

Members of the Committee reached unanimous agreement on certain points. First, however we felt about the emotional aspects of legal aid, we were all appalled by the soaring cost. Legal aid has seen the biggest increase in the whole of the public sector during the past few years, and we cannot go on like that.

The most important discovery during our deliberations was the enormously fertile area in which we can look for ways to make savings. We have heard many suggestions about that. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton made a point about VAT, which was taken up by the hon. Member for St. Helens, South. We cannot quantify it, because we have not done sufficient work yet.

Column 384

It might also be worth considering the difference between the remuneration of barristers and the remuneration of solicitors. The Committee was told that there was a great scope for savings in barristers' remuneration. For example, if one counsel were used instead of two in a big criminal case, important savings could be made.

The figures surprised us very much. We were told that, for instance, a barrister acting in a child law case would receive £300 an hour for reading papers, and £2,000 a day in refreshers. A while ago, the Director of Public Prosecutions told us that her average brief fee payment to a Queen's counsel for a trial lasting the average length of 2.6 days was £7,585. Those are bizarre sums--and, moreover, the fees are paid on legal aid.

Mr. Lawrence : They are not. Such sums simply are not paid on legal aid.

Dame Jill Knight : On page 11 of the report by the Select Committee on Home Affairs, we find the question :

"Are those fees paid on legal aid?"

The answer was :

"Yes".

Perhaps the position should be clarified, but in any

event--regardless of whether legal aid is involved--an enormous amount of money is being spent.

Next Section

Home Page