Examination of Witnesses (Questions 95-99)
29 JUNE 2004
RODNEY WARREN,
EVLYNNE GILVARRY,
HELEN COUSINS
AND ROBERT
BROWN
Chairman: Good morning and welcome. We
are very grateful to you for coming along to give us some help
with this matter. Before we start, we will declare any interests
we have.
Ross Cranston: I am a
barrister and recorder.
Keith Vaz: I am a non-practising barrister.
Mr Clappison: I am a non-practising barrister
as well.
Q95 Peter Bottomley: What effect do you
think these proposals will have on the number of solicitors willing
to undertake legally aided criminal work?
Ms Gilvarry: We have great concerns
that the bureaucracy attached to the proposals to introduce the
means test would cause a number of solicitors to consider that
they could no longer continue to do criminal legal aid work. The
proposals suggest a transfer of risk and bureaucracy to solicitors
which is simply unacceptable for a government which claims that
it wishes to reduce the burden on small businesses—and many
legal aid practices are small businesses.
Q96 Peter Bottomley: As well as some
good solicitors giving up civil legal aid work or the equivalent,
they are likely to have some good solicitors giving up criminal
legal aid work as well?
Ms Gilvarry: I am sure that is
the case. Our statistics suggest that there is an ageing cohort
of criminal legal aid practitioners. The real worry is that new
entrants are not taking up this work, and they certainly will
not be encouraged to take it up if they have to sign up to a regime
that involves an awful lot more bureaucracy.
Q97 Peter Bottomley: Is the consequence
of that likely to be more injustice?
Ms Gilvarry: I think, intuitively,
yes, of course, but perhaps I would ask a practitioner to say
how she might feel it would operate in practice
Ms Cousins: In practice I think
it is bound to lead to injustice because there will be less availability.
There will be less availability of good people willing to do the
work and that of itself leads to inaccessibility and inaccessibility
leads to lack of justice. So, yes, it is night-follows-day, I
think.
Q98 Peter Bottomley: Do you believe that
the proposals will allow solicitors to undertake more private
client work as expected by the Legal Services Commission? If so,
would you welcome this?
Ms Gilvarry: I honestly do not
think there will be a lot of extra private client work arising
from these. There will be possibly a number of people who will
not qualify for legal aid. Whether they will be able to afford
to pay for it privately is an unknown question. I somehow doubt
it.
Ms Cousins: Perhaps I can help
just a little on that. I run a criminal practice in a busy city
centre. I do not have a client account, I take no money whatsoever
from anybody, and this change would not make me do it because
the people who I service would not be in a position to pay, even
if it is the £34 that is being talked about. From my point
of view, it will not change the work that I do at all.
Q99 Chairman: Do you get the sense that
the £34 is designed actually to help full the public coffers
or it is just an irritant?
Ms Cousins: It is scraps. It is
not going to achieve what the plan is to achieve. We have views
that the place where effort should be focused is the crown court,
the RCDOs and indeed recovering costs from people who could properly
pay in the higher cost cases. Mr Brown will be able to deal with
that one far better than I.
Mr Brown: As I am sure you know,
0.1% of all criminal cases accounts for approximately 25% of the
total expenditure, but those expensive cases were in the High
Court and the crown court. Our view is that whereas we are not
against the re-introduction of a means test, if the Government
really wants to recover funds or the Commission wants to recover
funds, the way to do it is to look at those cases which cost the
public purse most. Being able to pick up £34 here and there
from the odd case in the magistrates court, from people who may
not pay anyway, is not going to make any significant net impact
on legal aid spend, so we would recommend that measures taken
to ensure, for example, through more active implementation of
recovery of defence costs orders, recovery of substantial funds
from defendants who could pay, in those cases which are truly
expensive. I think the use of the word "scraps" is very
apposite. This is really going to tinker at the edges and we do
not think it will have a substantial net benefit to the budget.
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