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12 July 2007 : Column 531WH—continued
“simple cases.”
The consequences that will flow from the situation are obvious.
We must consider the law of unintended consequences. The Government may well save a small amount of money through those changes, and they may control the budget and put it on an even keel, but what about the social consequences and the other costs that other Departments will have to pick up? The profession and HM Courts Service are in meltdown. We have a new Prime Minister, new Ministers and a superb Committee report. I urge the Minister to make a name for herself, and plead with the Prime Minister to treat this issue in the same way as he treated the casinos issue. He has the ideal opportunity: he has the Committee’s report, to which there has been a wholly inadequate response. The Minister should take it away, consider another response and reconsider all the arguments that have been put by Members from all parts of the House, but above all, by people in the profession who know what is happening on the ground. I urge her to take action.
5.47 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Maria Eagle): It is a pleasure to attend the debate as the new Minister with responsibility in the House of Commons for legal aid. So that Members are aware, however, I ought to make the point that Lord Hunt of Kings Heath takes the policy lead in the Department. It is not quite accurate to say that I have my hands fully on policy making in this respect, although everybody in the ministerial team has an interest in the issue.
I thank Members, and in particular the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith), whose Committee report we are debating today, for their excellent work. I thank him also for the way in which he introduced the debate. There are a few lawyers in the Public Gallery today, and some are even sitting in the Chamber. I am one of them, although I do not practise. I have not practised in the 10 years since I became a Member of Parliament. However, as a solicitor, I have experience in the areas under discussion. I therefore do have an understanding of these matters, although it is more out of date perhaps than that of some people who will be interested to read the Hansard report of today’s debate.
I recognise the great concern and the passion with which points have been made during the debate. In the short time that I have been in my post, I have had the opportunity to read about the gestation of some of the issues and to read previous debates. I have read the early-day motions. I have read about a lot of what has been going on, so I understand the issue and I recognise the concerns that have been expressed.
I am pleased to answer the debate, although time is short. In the time that remains, it is inevitable that I shall not have a chance to deal with every point that has been raised. However, as some Members have asked specific questions about their constituencies, I undertake to contact them by letter, because I shall inevitably run out of time before I have dealt with all the points. I have listened to what they have said, and I understand both the concerns that have been expressed, and that many present do not agree with much of what the Government are doing. However, it seems that there is some agreement and common ground between the Government and those people who disagree with aspects of the reform programme.
Everybody wants a system that allows us to help more people. We all want a system that allows proper value for money, that is joined up with the rest of our justice system and that contributes to and benefits from the work going on to improve the entire criminal justice system and to make it more efficient. Legal aid provides a vital service; everybody has made that absolutely clear. It has never enjoyed the same profile as other elements of the welfare state—a number of Members have made this point—but it is an important plank of it.
I do not accept that legal aid has been starved of funds. Nobody said that specifically, although the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) came precious close. Spending has increased in the past 10 years from about £1.5 billion in 1997 to more than £2 billion. A lot of money is going into the system. My hon. Friend the Member for City of York (Hugh Bayley) might have felt like Daniel in the lions’ den for making similar points—he ought to consider how I feel at the moment—but he was correct that this country spends far more on legal aid than any other European country. The Committee made the same point in its report.
The taxpayer has a right to expect good value for money. Payment by the hour is rather old-fashioned. Any member of the legal profession would accept that—there are not many other professions these days in which one gets paid by the hour. It is old-fashioned, it does not work and it has its own perverse incentives. Part of our debate has concerned the perverse incentives that might arise from some of the reform proposals, but we should not forget that the current system has perverse incentives that have existed for many years.
David Howarth: There is an important question about hourly rates. The Minister is right to say that they create perverse incentives. Why are the Government proposing to go back to hourly rates in the exceptional cases mentioned by the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk? Surely it should be a completely different system, if the Minister is correct.
Maria Eagle: I do not think that we are moving from a completely terrible system to a totally perfect one. We are trying to effect reforms that will create many desirable outcomes. I do not think myself that hourly rates are ideal, but there we are. With exceptional cases, it will be a way of recognising that some cases are much more expensive, and of giving those who handle them some certainty that they will be properly remunerated for the extra complexity.
The large amount of money that we spend on legal aid has resulted in a system to be proud of—it helps hundreds of thousands of people a year—but we must focus on achieving best value for money, so that we can get as much help as possible to those who need it. Many hon. Friends from inner-city areas, specifically those from London, have made points about that access and about using the money that we have to ensure that those who need help the most get it. I could not agree more. The example of civil legal help, much of which has been provided under the tailored fixed fee scheme, bears that out. There were fewer than 600,000 acts of assistance in 2004-05, but 800,000 were carried out in 2006-07, partly as a result of that reform—a significant increase due to better productivity.
Obviously, we must balance things carefully. One person’s productivity is another person’s squeeze on profits. We must get it right, but that is what the Legal Services Commission, with providers’ co-operation, seeks to do.
Ms Abbott: Do the Government have any plans to ameliorate the reforms’ disproportionate effect on black and minority ethnic solicitors?
Maria Eagle: I wanted to make a few comments before dealing with specific issues, but my hon. Friend has raised an important one about the impact on black and minority ethnic providers in inner cities. She made her point particularly powerfully. I must be slightly careful what I say; I am enough of a lawyer not to go into too much detail when a matter is before the court. There is no doubt that a lot of solicitors—16 per cent.—are black and minority ethnic. The majority work for white-run firms, if I can put it crudely, not black-run ones. Sixteen per cent. is greater than the proportion of black and minority ethnic people in the population, so there is a great deal to be proud of in having so many in the profession.
The proposals for a minimum contract size will have little or no adverse impact on individual BME solicitors. My hon. Friend is making a point about the proposals’ impact on small firms, but the Government have not yet decided to introduce a minimum contract size. I accept that doing so could have an adverse impact on firms that do less work—that is common sense—but we have made no decision to do so, and we are continuing to listen.
When she was the Minister responsible, the Solicitor-General—she has moved on to greater things—did something that I am sure everyone would agree with, whatever they think of what she might have said in previous debates: she went out and consulted extensively with the profession during the gestation of the proposals. I accept that hon. Members and the profession do not necessarily like the prescriptions that she came up with, but she and the Government consulted extremely widely about them, and we wish to continue to do so. I want to make it absolutely clear that the new ministerial team will be listening as we continue to develop the proposals, because we want to listen to what people have to say.
The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed and others mentioned the impact on firms in rural areas. In respect of civil and family legal aid, the hon. and learned Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr. Cox) made a point about advice deserts, as did one or two others. Some 93 per cent. of the population live within five miles of specialist legal aid providers. There is no evidence that we have deserts. That does not mean that firms will not merge or decide to stop doing legal aid work; I accept that such issues may well arise, and we need to keep a close eye on them. The last thing that we want is for advice deserts to develop. We are trying to ensure that the money we spend, which has been increasing, is spent properly on helping as many people as possible to get advice for their legal problems.
Mr. Graham Stuart: I should just like to nail one point. The legal aid budget has increased, as the Minister said, to £2 billion, but taking into account inflation during that period, it is pretty much where it was in 1997, despite 3,000 extra offences. The truth is that the legal aid budget has not grown above inflation; it has stayed where it was. There is no crisis.
Maria Eagle: There is no doubt that the legal aid spend has been going up. There have not been cuts in the way that has sometimes been described by those who have commented. The hon. Gentleman made some points about his constituency, and I would prefer to write to him in response to them. I heard what he said, and want to make clear that I shall come back to him.
A specific issue was raised about the urban-rural balance and whether there would be a greater impact in the inner cities or rural areas. The aim of the proposals is to try to get a wider range of provision in rural areas, in some of which that is currently quite limited. Members have concentrated on saying that they think that the provision that they already have might disappear, but we recognise that there are already some such issues in some areas. The aim is to improve the situation.
In respect of London, the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) appears to be pretty well served by legal aid solicitors. He said that there had been a change in the nature of the provision, but his constituency is still pretty well served compared to some other inner-city areas. We are trying to ensure that everywhere there is the required provision of legal services for those who need them.
The hon. and learned Member for Torridge and West Devon and my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) discussed the role of not-for-profit organisations and citizens advice bureaux, which have a vital role. Over the years, the Legal Services Commission has made increasing use of such providers, which have accounted for much of the increasing provision of legal help, particularly in inner cities. More help is needed in London, but the volume of help there is rising.
It being Six o’clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the sitting lapsed, without Question put.
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