Evidence submitted by Stephen Nelson &
Partners (LAR 232)
I write to you in my capacity as a solicitor
and in your capacity as an MP sitting as a member of the Constitutional
Affairs Committee and I write following the attendance of Lord
Carter and Carolyn Regan before the committee in recent days.
You will be aware that solicitors have voiced their protests through
the Law Society and are contemplating taking what can only be
called direct action. I am not sure that I share the view of my
colleagues that that is necessary the correct approach, but I
fully understand their anger and wish if I could to disabuse you
as a committee of certain aspects of what appears to have been
said.
Committee member Alan Whitehead MP appears to
have drawn a comparison between ourselves as criminal practitioners
with local authority tenders for refuse collection. He noted that
bidding is now dominated in the refuse world by four of five national
companies that can sustain some losing bids. The comparison, if
you will forgive me, is ridiculous. Firstly there is the question
of the fact that refuse collection is the collection of inanimate
objects for disposal in either incinerators or some waste site,
whereas we, a solicitors, are professionally trained over many
years and are dealing with some of the most vulnerable and most
difficult members of society in arguably some of the most difficulty
circumstances that one can know. To suggest that some huge conglomerate
could adequately deal with these people and provide them with
access to justice is, if you will forgive me, ludicrous.
Lord Carter said to the committee, when asked
how firms that failed in a bidding round would survive to bid
again that, "Firms within criminal legal aid is marginal
now are leaving and that people practising in that town will go
to another firm. With market management will be enough firms left
in the second, third and fourth rounds."
To put it bluntly, that comment is rubbish.
I started my practice some 20 years ago. There were in Sidcup
at that time some seven firms with a criminal practice. There
is now only ourselves left with a practice in Sidcup attending
to criminal defence work. In the London Borough of Bexley as a
whole, which as I am sure you are aware is a large London borough,
there are now only two firms; ourselves and a firm by the name
of Messrs Thos Boyd Whyte. If one takes the London Borough of
Bromley and the London Borough of Bexley as a whole and I note
that Bob Neill MP is the MP for Bromley and Chislehurst, there
are now only six firms to cover those two boroughs. This is a
huge swathe of South East London with very little acccess to criminal
justice. It is not right to say that if a firm closes, people
will go elsewhere. They leave the profession altogether. And why
I ask you should my firm, which has been involved in franchising
since day one, and which supports the auditing of public money,
should I be closed simply because of the fact that you have this
ill conceived idea that market forces will assist. I support value
for money and I support the desire to be audited to ensure that
I am spending public money properly, but the proposals that have
been put forward will deny those people I represent access to
justice and will increasingly give rise to miscarriages of justice,
such that sooner or later, a very serious miscarriage of justice
will come about and someone will suffer by a lengthy prison sentence
which they do not deserve. I would be very happy to give evidence
to the committee. I am happy to share my experiences and my knowledge
with the committee I am happy to argue my corner and the value
of my firm to the profession and those of my professional colleagues
in other firms to the profession, but I urge you to discount that
which you have been told by Carolyn Regan, Lord Carter and others,
because to be honest, it is plainly spurious.
I assure you of my best advices at all times.
March 2007
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