Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 — House of Lords, 2019-02-07
Topic: Law and Crime
Richard Keen (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and the noble Lord, Lord Marks, for their contributions. I am a little disappointed by the response of the noble Baroness. These reports have been welcomed in many quarters, although not universally and not without qualification. However, that is hardly a surprise because, let us be clear, this is a difficult and controversial area Let us look for a moment to the background. We had a financial crash in 2008. It is easy to say that austerity is a political choice but essentially it is not; austerity is a consequence. Furthermore, after that financial crash, which impacted right across our society, we had the party manifestos for the election in 2010. The Labour manifesto said explicitly that it would be necessary to address the cost of legal aid provision, and that was its intent—the cost was too high. That was recognised by other parties and indeed by the coalition Government themselves, who brought forward the LASPO Act to try to bring some degree of control over the ever-spiralling actual financial cost of legal aid. The noble Lord, Lord Marks, acknowledged this We not talking just about the immediate cost of legal aid but about the wider issue of access to justice and the means by which we can ensure that there is legal assistance as well as legal aid for all in our society, but particularly for the most vulnerable, who truly require it. That is why I am thankful that the noble Lord has welcomed the action plan which is designed to look not only at the provision of financial resources for legal advice and assistance but the manner in which we can deliver legal support for people at the right time and in the right place. To do that, we want to see the development of web-based products, for example. We want to see proper signposting and advice for people. Moreover, we want to encourage that sort of advice and signposting at an early stage because there is a belief that if we can do that, we can help resolve people’s issues before they develop into major and costly litigation. All of that is to be considered In addition, we are going to test the impact of early legal advice by promoting certain pilots, particularly in the area of social welfare law, to see what results can be secured. I note the observation of the noble Lord, Lord Marks, about the need for implementation at pace, and indeed we are committed to the implementation of all of these recommendations as soon as we can. For example, we will be looking at the financial levels for qualification for legal aid and we intend to bring that to a conclusion by summer 2020 so that these matters can be addressed as soon as possible There are areas where we face difficulties with regard to the provision of legal advice. The noble Lord referred to legal advice deserts. In fact, in the areas of housing and debt, we are generally well covered across England and Wales so far as advice is concerned, but I accept that there are still gaps which have to be filled by, for example, telephone advice, which is not the ideal. Indeed, one of the reasons we want to roll out the web-based access that I mentioned earlier is to address the demand for legal advice and assistance in rural areas and other areas outside urban centres where that is more readily to hand. That is certainly part of our proposed action plan, On the assurances the noble Lord sought, he readily appreciates that it is not in my power to secure a debate in this House, but no doubt the usual channels will have heard his observations. I concur with his reference to the depth and breadth of these reports, and perhaps the need to look at them in more detail to figure out just where we are going forward and how quickly we should go forward on these issues. As I sought to reassure him earlier, we are concerned to ensure that there is implementation of these proposals as soon as it is possible to secure it.