| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
9 May 2007 : Column 121WH—continued
Mr. Hoon: I have made my observation about the election in Serbia. I hope that that assists my hon. Friend and sets out clearly the Government’s position.
The Parliamentary Assembly has a clear responsibility in relation to budgetary matters. The secretary-general proposes to reduce the 2008 budget by 2 per cent., which must be viewed in the context of the whole of the 2008 budget. All Council of Europe directorates have accepted the need for the reduction. I hope that the Parliamentary Assembly will shoulder its responsibility, too. I hope that the UK delegation will show leadership inside the Assembly and support the secretary-general’s request.
The need for reform extends to the Court, too. We must make fundamental reforms if we are to guarantee its future. In many ways, the Court has been a victim of its own success. As new members have joined the Council of Europe, more citizens have applied to the Court, and a backlog of 90,000 applications has developed. That represents a serious threat to accessibility and effectiveness, and in practice acts as a barrier to justice.
The Court’s needs are not simply financial, however. As ever, the UK has been at the forefront of efforts to address the problem of caseload. Lord Woolf produced a report in December 2005 to identify some short-term measures. He is also a member of the wise persons group, set up to look at more fundamental reform. The starting point for reform is the ratification of protocol 14, a mechanism designed to introduce simplified and more efficient procedures. Russia is the only member state yet to ratify the protocol. The situation is now urgent, so I should like to take this opportunity to urge the Duma to find a way to ratify it.
I should also like to emphasise that a modern and efficient Council of Europe needs close co-operation with the European Union, the United Nations and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, in order to avoid duplication and ensure that each organisation plays to its comparative advantages and uses its expertise appropriately.
Mr. Brady: Just to remind the Minister, I hope that he will tell us when the Government will ratify the convention on action against trafficking in human beings.
Mr. Hoon: I shall deal with that in the brief time available. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary signed the convention on action against trafficking in human beings on 23 March, which coincided with the launch of the UK action plan on human trafficking. Having signed the convention, we are now committed to implementing changes in legislation to allow for its eventual ratification. However, the hon. Gentleman will be aware that that is a parliamentary process. In order to ensure that our law conforms with the obligations that we have entered into internationally, there will necessarily be a parliamentary process, which will—
Mr. Mike Weir (in the Chair): Order. I am afraid that we have run out of time.
Legal Aid Reform
4 pm
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney, North and Stoke Newington) (Lab): Unusually for a Member securing a debate such as this, I am not a lawyer—I never have been, nor have I ever trained as one. My point of departure for bringing this debate to the Chamber is the issue of access to justice for my constituents, who are among the poorest people in society and make up a highly ethnically diverse community.
It is common now in smart circles to speak disparagingly about lawyers—“fat cat lawyer” is the phrase; the words run one into another. It is even common to be disparaging about the importance of the meticulous application of the rule of law. So it is important to remind colleagues that legal aid is one of the pillars of the welfare state of which we are so proud. The Legal Aid and Advice Act 1949 made reference to:
“assistance...and legal advice...so that no one will be financially unable to prosecute a just and reasonable claim or to defend a legal right”.
Legal aid needs defending just as all on my side of the Chamber would, I hope, defend free access to the health service at the point of use. Legal aid is one of the essential pillars of the welfare state.
It is to the credit of the Government that legal aid spending should have risen in recent years. However, that rise in expenditure and costs has been the basis for the Government’s legal aid reforms. It is true that in England and Wales we spend more per capita on legal aid than almost anywhere else in the world. Legal aid expenditure has gone from £1.5 billion in 1997 to nearly £2 billion today—extraordinary figures. We might say, “Gosh, all these fat cat lawyers in their limousines are carrying away bagfuls of money.” The Government are doing something about that—and only too right.
However, although the costs have risen and the Government are absolutely right to try to obtain value for money for the taxpayer, I draw people’s attention to the fact that the rise in legal aid costs is a complex subject. A recent study commissioned by the Law Society pointed out:
“It is correct that total legal aid costs have increased significantly over the past decade. However, it is...important to recognise that the increases do not apply to all areas of legal aid...In the past three years, 2002-06, costs in most areas of criminal and civil work have increased only slowly if at all, and on a per case basis have often decreased.”
Yet the Government are bringing in changes in the fee arrangements and reforms that are designed to apply across the piece, in spite of research that reveals that the inflation in costs has occurred only in certain areas—notably criminal defence in the Crown court, with the famous £1 million-a-year barristers. I hope that there are none in the Chamber today. Cost inflation has also occurred in litigation advice and child care proceedings. I ask Ministers why, if the cost inflation applies to very specific areas of legal aid practice, they are applying a remedy across the piece. That will have a detrimental effect, to which I shall come later.
In leaving the issues of costs, of the complexity of cost inflation and of the over-simple remedy that the Government are applying, I could do no better than quote a distinguished QC who spoke in a debate on criminal legal aid in October 2005. She spoke about costs and countered the argument that they were all down to fat cat defence lawyers, from whom we had to take money away. She said:
“The costs of the criminal justice system generally, leaving aside legal aid, have increased by 46 per cent. in the same period that we are talking about legal aid having increased. It is hardly surprising that defence costs have increased as well.”—[Official Report, Westminster Hall, 26 October 2005; Vol. 438, c. 74WH.]
That logical point was well put by a distinguished QC, who also happens to be the Minister replying to this debate.
Everybody accepts that it is important that the Government should get value for money. However, given that the cost inflation is specific to certain areas of legal aid, one of the questions asked by the Law Society and other representative organisations is about why we are engaging in such an across-the-board remedy. There are many critiques of the Government’s legal aid reforms and many are valid. However, in the short time available, I want to focus on the issue of the reforms’ effect on black and minority ethnic lawyers. I want to do that not because it is the only problem, but because it has become increasingly clear that the legal aid reforms will bear particularly heavily on such lawyers. One might ask, “Why should that be? The Government are not putting forward legislation designed to be deliberately discriminatory.” The problem is that black and minority ethnic lawyers are more likely to be in legal aid and to have smaller, newer companies.
Mr. Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab): I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Does she accept that one reason why there are solicitors’ firms and barristers’ chambers that are predominantly made up of ethnic minorities is that such minorities have difficulties in securing employment and tenancy in the mainstream chambers or solicitors’ firms? The legal aid reforms could well have the impact of making us lose those ethnic minority solicitors and barristers from the profession altogether.
Ms Abbott: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that important point. It is sad that such people have been forced into setting up their own firms and sets because of—I shall not mince my words—institutional racism among some of the mainstream of the legal profession. It would appear that there is now a serious risk that many BME lawyers will be forced out of business. Many may end up leaving the legal profession altogether.
Why do the reforms impact more severely on black and minority ethnic firms? It is not because the Government deliberately want that to happen; I would not begin to suggest that. However, many aspects of the reforms are a problem for such firms. The minimum contract threshold will affect smaller firms and automatically put many BME firms out of the legal aid business. There is the issue of competitive tendering; in any competitive tendering situation, the bigger the organisation, the better the economies of scale. That mitigates against BME firms.
The boundary areas, which mean that only 20 per cent. of legal aid cases can be taken outside a firm’s local area, will be difficult for BME firms. There is the fact that high-cost cases will be dealt with only by a panel of approved firms, which will tend to be the larger and more established ones. Unless the Government stop and think, black and minority ethnic solicitors will be more likely to lose their jobs, more likely to leave or change companies and more likely to leave the legal profession altogether. By the bye, there will also be a smaller pool of black and minority ethnic lawyers from which to choose judges.
Mr. Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon) (Con): I should like to add to the hon. Lady’s pertinent list. The Government have not proved that there will be any financial benefit from what will be the disastrous consequences of their policies for black and ethnic minority firms. I should like to put on the record that the Conservative party is concerned at the situation. We see that the Government’s policy will destroy established lines of access to legal representation for no measurable gain to our legal system.
Ms Abbott: The point is well put. Obviously, the cost inflation is of concern, but the cost drivers of legal aid are complex. The Government have not proven that the reforms will bear down on costs without undue detrimental effects. I would go further and say that black and minority ethnic firms bring added value to our legal system; they are more able to gain the trust of black and minority ethnic clients and can therefore deal with their cases more easily and quickly. They are more likely to have employees who speak a relevant language.
Such firms represent an important point of communication and representation between black communities, which are more likely to be socially excluded, and the legal world. They play a vital role in community cohesion. The issue is not only about fairness, but community cohesion, and that makes me think it regrettable that the Government are going forward with the proposals in their current form.
For many in our black and minority ethnic communities—I can talk about this with some feeling—their black or minority ethnic solicitor or black and minority ethnic-led firm is where they turn in time of trouble. Many solicitors firms might have taken Doreen Lawrence’s case and fought it in the way in which Imran Khan did, but it was to Imran Khan that Doreen Lawrence turned. It was Imran Khan who stuck with Doreen Lawrence when she met terrible hostility under the Tory Government and when she did not have money to pay him, because he believed in the case not only because he was a good solicitor but because he came from a minority ethnic community and knew what she was going through. It is the Imran Khans and the Doreen Lawrences—maybe not involved in cases of that momentous nature, but that type of person—who will be detrimentally affected.
Mr. Andy Slaughter (Ealing, Acton and Shepherd's Bush) (Lab):
I do not think that my hon. Friend should take solace from the Conservative party, which is trying to put out of business my local law centre, which employs a number of black and minority ethnic
solicitors. She says, rightly, that there is not deliberate prejudice on the part of the Government, and we would expect that, but, as she says, many BME firms are small firms. The changes appear to bear down on small firms, including through the inspection regime, and such firms are generally seen as a bad thing. The effect of inspecting and finding fault, often with small firms who have difficult overheads, may inadvertently drive BME solicitors firms out of business.
Ms Abbott: That is the point that I was trying to make. We are not looking at deliberate discrimination, but we may be looking at indirect discrimination. No less an authority than the Select Committee on Constitutional Affairs, in its recent report on the implementation of the Carter review of legal aid, said in paragraph 229, its final conclusion:
“We are concerned that some of the reform proposals may contravene the prohibition of indirect racial discrimination under the Race Relations Act 1976 as subsequently amended. Some of the reform proposals, notably the introduction of minimum contract sizes, leave us in doubt as to whether they are a necessary and proportionate means to achieve the intended objective, which is the legal test.”
We are faced with a set of untested changes, no doubt brought forward with the best of intentions. Everyone who has examined the changes, including practitioners in the field, has said that they will bear down more heavily on black and minority ethnic lawyers and will have the detrimental effect on access to justice and community cohesion that I have mentioned.
The Government do not need to change the direction of travel, but it is not too late for them to pause and market test the changes in one region of the country to see the effects. We might speculate this afternoon, but it would be better at the least to test out the package of reforms in one small area of the country and to come back with what we have found. As matters stand, we run the risk of decimating many good legal aid firms, small solicitors and black and minority ethnic law firms. The Minister and the Lord Chancellor have said over and over again that they are in favour of increased diversity in the legal profession, and we would be acting against that.
The Minister spoke in June 2006 to the Black Solicitors Network. Her speech to an audience of black lawyers was widely regarded as excellent. In her closing remarks, she said that
“many of you here this evening have already been working to make this profession”—
“one that represents Britain in the twenty-first century. I hope that...you can regard me as an ally in that quest.”
They still regard her as an ally in that quest, but they will regard her as more of an ally if even at this late stage she pauses, reflects and listens to what all the representative organisations, including housing advice and homeless advice organisations, have to say and to all the evidence and information that has been proffered to Ministers about the unintentional detrimental effect of the legislation.
She will be more of an ally to the cause of increased diversity in the legal profession if she pauses and reflects on how the plans can be taken forward without the consequences for black and minority ethnic solicitors and access for justice that I have outlined in
my remarks. We welcome the funding that the Government have given legal aid up until now and we do not query the good faith of Ministers.
I have known, grown up with and worked with people who have struggled to get their law qualifications, coming from backgrounds a million miles away from that of the traditional lawyer. They have struggled in a mainstream firm, perhaps, and to set up their own firm. At last, they are stabilising and can achieve their potential as a lawyer and serve the wider community. Now, that generation of solicitors and lawyers is threatened with decimation because of an ill thought out Government proposal. If they understood more about what that feels like and what it will mean to those communities and those people, Ministers would even now stop and think about the proposals.
4.15 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Vera Baird): Like my hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Mr. Khan), I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) on obtaining this debate.
We debated the main thrust of our proposals for legal aid in this Chamber a short time ago and I shall not retread old ground. However, today is the first day of the new Ministry of Justice and it is important to reiterate our commitment to a legal aid system that serves 21st-century Britain in all its diversity. It is central to a properly functioning justice system in this country.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington said, we have the best funded legal aid system in the world. Running closely behind us—we pay about £100 a head while they pay about £30—are the continental systems that have an inquisitorial process. All the other adversarial systems are further behind again. Without doubt, we have a well-funded system. My hon. Friend is right to say that there is an odd mixture of pride that the cost of legal aid has gone up and of difficulty, and that the drivers are complex. I do not change a word of what I said in the debate that she quoted from, and I am grateful for her use of the word “distinguished” to refer to me.
The drivers are complex, of course, but it is necessary to manage costs in the ever-spiralling legal aid fund, and in particular to manage them as they relate to crime. My hon. Friend talks as though it were totally a cost issue, but it is not. At least part of the reform involves changing the way in which lawyers are paid so that we can guarantee that we get appropriate value for money for a quality service, moving from hourly rates, which are likely to support inefficiency rather than efficiency, to fixed fees. That is part of the structural changes, and such measures are necessary in areas where there is not a huge overspend. That means that when we move money across we are sure that we are getting value for money in the places where we locate the new funds. The changes have a number of purposes.
| Next Section | Index | Home Page |