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2.14 pm
Mr. Hoon: With the leave of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I shall reply to the debate. It has been a serious, thoughtful and constructive debate. I hope that my hon. Friends will forgive me if I say that it has taken me a little time to get used to the idea of having more lawyers behind me than opposite me.
I will try to deal with the wide variety of issues raised; if I fail to deal with every point, I apologise. I am willing to take up any argument in correspondence if I fail to address particular concerns. I could have taken much more time to respond to the debate, but I hope that hon. Members will understand that, by limiting my closing remarks, I have allowed more speeches than would otherwise have been possible.
I congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Calder Valley (Ms McCafferty) and for Hastings and Rye (Mr. Foster) on their excellent maiden speeches. My hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley gave the House an enjoyable account of the history and present circumstances of her constituency, an area I know quite well from my days of living in Leeds. I had the chance to play cricket on many of the beautiful cricket grounds in and around my hon. Friend's constituency. I came to appreciate the Yorkshire approach to fair play and winning at cricket, which may be relevant to the subject of litigation.
I have not had the privilege of visiting the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye. I suggest that he treats the advice he received about the Whips with some caution, as I would not want him to end up like King Harold. He is obviously used to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune as he is, I note, a qualified Football Association referee. As I always agree with the referees' decisions on a Saturday afternoon, I congratulate my hon. Friend again on his maiden speech.
As congratulations are in order, I ought to congratulate the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) on his complete conversion to the role of Opposition. Some of his Front-Bench colleagues are struggling with difficulties of adjustment; they do not know how to use public transport or how to write their own speeches. I assure the hon. and learned Gentleman that the next time the sweater-clad massed ranks of the Conservatives assemble at Eastbourne, he will be hailed as a star.
During the hon. and learned Gentleman's hour-long speech, he managed to avoid making a single reference to any aspect of his party's policy on these questions. During such a long contribution, we could have been treated to some idea of what he thought might be an alternative to our proposals. He seems to suffer from an obsession with spin doctoring; we had 10 minutes of concerns about spin doctors. Perhaps the hon. and learned Gentleman should instead congratulate journalists on the excellence of their articles.
The hon. and learned Gentleman made one or two points about the Government's proposals with which I shall endeavour to deal. He expressed some concern about consistency and about the speed of the introduction
of fixed costs and fast track. I emphasise that Lord Woolf advised against piloting the fast track. He favoured the development of a series of hypothetical case studies; that is precisely what the Government are doing.
I seem to recollect that the previous Government recommended a rather earlier implementation date for the proposals than the one on which we have decided. Again, it seems a little unfair of the hon. and learned Gentleman to criticise the Government for undue haste. We are taking a little longer than the previous Government thought appropriate.
In respect of the Policy Studies Institute research and my authority for quoting 28,000 cases, the figure was obtained from the Law Society shortly before the PSI conference on 23 September 1997. It represents the number of agreements registered with Accident Line Protect, but, as that is only one of the insurance companies involved, it is likely that more cases have been agreed so far. I emphasise to the hon. Members who have contributed to the debate that we are determined to consult in respect of the description of cases that will be excluded from legal aid and in respect of what, if any, special arrangements may be required for difficult cases. I shall refer to some more examples in due course.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews) asked for tolerance of his views. Perhaps I should remind him that I was so tolerant of his views that I devoted a day of the general election campaign to driving from the north midlands to Medway and back in order to ensure that he would be here to express those views. That certainly demonstrates a degree of tolerance.
Mr. Marshall-Andrews:
I thank my hon. Friend for his contribution.
Mr. Hoon:
I think that I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend for his remarks, but I have certainly never blaggarded legal aid lawyers and I do not intend to do so. Turning to his comments about caring lawyers dealing with medical negligence cases, I might be more impressed by their caring qualities had they not always been paid for their work.
The Government's difficulty in respect of legal aid is that far too many unmeritorious cases are supported by the taxpayer. It is clearly necessary to get legal aid under control, and that is our ambition. It is a matter not of being dictated to by the Treasury, but of finding mechanisms to control legal aid expenditure.
My hon. and learned Friend was most eloquent about the philosophy underlying legal aid and its introduction in 1949. However, if we are to ensure that legal aid continues to be available on any basis, we have to bear in mind the fact that since 1949 eligibility has continually fallen simply because successive Governments have been unable to afford its costs. In making judgments about whether to spend more money on education, the health service or legal aid, my hon. and learned Friend will know better than I do that Governments have not necessarily favoured the prospect of spending still more money on lawyers instead of teachers, nurses or doctors. All Governments have to face that judgment.
Despite his philosophical approach, my hon. and learned Friend should realise that at some stage we shall have to recognise that so few people are eligible for legal
aid that the very principles that he so eloquently set out are being undermined. My hon. and learned Friend makes his criticisms now, but if we continued with the status quo, he would have to make them at some stage--if not against the present Minister, against whoever will be standing at the Dispatch Box in a few years' time--when tough decisions have to be taken. [Interruption.] That was not an announcement of my resignation.
My hon. Friend the Member for Salford (Ms Blears) emphasised the difficulties of eligibility. As I said in my opening remarks, all hon. Members have experience of constituents writing in or coming to their surgeries complaining that although they had properly paid their taxes for many years, they were not eligible for legal aid.
There have been complaints that the Government have not had sufficient contact with the insurance industry. As I have said, those contacts have continued over a very long period. We are not suddenly discovering the existence of the insurance industry. We have had regular meetings at ministerial and official level. I could read out the long list of contacts that has been supplied to me, but I am not sure that that would be appropriate at this stage. I assure the House that the Department is analysing very carefully how best risk can be borne. We will involve professions and the insurance industry in the work. It is clearly important that we achieve the right balance.
I emphasise that someone has to be responsible for paying the up-front costs of litigation. We may end up with some sort of compromise. We are considering such ideas. Lawyers may share some of the burden, as may the insurance industry. Indeed, it is not impossible that, in some cases, the taxpayer will continue to share some of the burden. We are engaged in such discussions and consultation.
My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell), who kindly told me that he would not be present for the winding-up speech, said that the rise in legal aid spending was not solely attributable to civil cases. We are, however, concerned with civil cases today. He is not strictly accurate in suggesting that the rise in crime under the previous Government contributed so much to the rise in legal aid spending. There has been a very significant increase in the cost of civil legal aid, but it cannot be attributed to an increase in the number of cases, which he implied.
The hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale, West (Mr. Brady) said that he was not a lawyer. I must reveal that he is a political consultant by profession. Whether that is a more popular job than being a lawyer I am not so sure. Nevertheless, he made a serious point about the need for consultation, which we are undertaking. He emphasised the importance of the small firm. I would simply respond by saying that we want firms that offer expert, specialist and professionally competent advice to their clients. Such firms might be small or large. I want the taxpayer to support through legal aid lawyers who are competent in the work in question. I cannot see that anyone can object to that.
I largely welcome the contribution of the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing). She is both a solicitor and a political consultant. How popular that will be remains to be seen.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) for his very thoughtful and detailed comments. He has already contributed to the general debate and I know that he will continue to do so.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Stinchcombe) described his concern about the impact on judicial review. I assure him that that is the kind of area in which we are carefully considering whether the 75 per cent. chance of success is entirely appropriate. Different criteria may operate in certain cases.
My hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd, West (Mr. Thomas) referred to the community legal service. That gives me an opportunity to emphasise that unless and until we gain control over spending in the traditional legal aid system, we will never be able to switch resources effectively to areas of legal advice that, over long periods, have been sadly neglected. Although we have been pressing down on eligibility and thereby reducing the number of people who are able to receive traditional legal aid, it has been quite impossible to provide advice and assistance in any other area. That is what we are consulting on with regard to the community legal service. That will give us an opportunity to redirect and refocus resources on new areas of advice and assistance.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mr. Lock) made a number of detailed points, as he has done at previous meetings with me. I appreciate his suggestion that it is necessary for us to put aside our respective professional interests for the sake of the public interest and I thought that his comments amply demonstrated the importance of that. We are consulting about the way in which we can support non-legal disbursements in money claims, and we have received a number of thoughtful proposals which we are considering carefully as part of our reform programme.
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