Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

I will not give way, because many other Members are keen to speak in this important debate. It worries me that the Government are ignoring expert advice on a proposal which, in my view, would remove a fundamental right from citizens, and that there has been no consultation whatsoever. The Bar Council and the Law Society have expressed honest concerns about the legislation, but the Government have completely ignored them, which is outrageous. Many members of the Bill Committee took that point on board, but in an article one of them, the hon. Member for Ipswich (Ben Gummer), described the Bar Council as bewigged Scargillites. I assure the House that my colleagues at the Bar are far from being bewigged Scargillites. During my time as a criminal lawyer I defended the last Government on many occasions, and it is nonsense to say that that Labour Government were not generous to publicly funded lawyers. However, I believe that a fixed fee in a police station is now about a hundred and sixty quid; it is certainly less than two hundred. If I were still a solicitor and the pager went off, I would have to go to the police station with no idea of what awaited me. I would hope to be there for five minutes, but I might well be there for six, seven, eight, nine or 10 hours, or even longer. It is utterly disgraceful to suggest that publicly funded lawyers are earning vast sums. As of 3 October this year, solicitors are not paid committal fees in a magistrates court. That effectively means that if a case is committed to the Crown Court, whether under section 51 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 or because the defendant elects for it, the solicitor will not be paid for the work. So when will solicitors be paid? They will not be paid in a police station, and they will not be paid if the case is committed to the Crown Court. Is not the Government's plan simply to squeeze solicitors out of the game? Clause 12 suggests that they expect them to work for free. Make no mistake: that is what it is all about. It is true that big solicitors' firms with mixed practices dealing with other areas of law involving private payment may well survive, retain a criminal franchise and employ people to do a job, but I can tell the House that it is not cheap to employ an accredited police station representative. I do not know for sure because I have never been one, but I would guess that their salaries are between 25 and 30 grand a year. A newly qualified solicitor in my area, Hull, probably earns between £22,000 and £26,000. Moreover, the courses that solicitors must attend in order to become qualified to give legal advice in a police station cost many hundreds of pounds, and it is not a one-off cost. When people become qualified to give such advice, that is not the end of the matter, because they are required to engage in CPD as they continue in practice. It is unbelievably short-sighted of this disgraceful Tory-led coalition Government, disgracefully propped up by the Liberal Democrats, to suggest that this might be a good idea. [Interruption.] I am not sure what the Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr Blunt), said from a sedentary position, but I am sure it was not worth hearing. The reality is—make no mistake about it—that this will cost an awful lot more money in the long run. I am glad I have put that on the record because at some point in the future I will be saying it again to those on the Treasury Bench.