Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Citizens advice bureaux do a fantastic job and they do their best to be as productive as possible. It is hard to measure productivity when one is dealing with advice. It is hard to measure how long it takes to explain to people the seriousness of their situation. As we all know from our advice surgeries, some people get it quickly and others take a long time to understand the reality of their situation. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock) said, it sometimes takes several visits. A solicitor or advice bureau cannot do that; only MPs can do that. That is why we are vulnerable to such visitations every Friday evening, or whenever we hold our advice surgeries. The other point I wanted to make is about the effect of these provisions on the legal profession. Like other hon. Members, I visit universities and colleges on occasion, and I meet and talk to students. I meet many enthusiastic young law students who are working hard and doing well. They want to work in criminal law and advice, but they cannot get work in those areas. We are turning out a generation of lawyers who pursue property and commercial cases because that is where the money is, and the criminal law will suffer, along with the rights of the individual. The poorest people in the poorest communities in this country will suffer as a result. The legal aid changes will lead to an inequality of justice. My right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford made two very important points. The first was about family reunion cases in immigration law. Notwithstanding the problems with the Border and Immigration Agency, there is a cost implication of removing legal aid for family reunion, because it will lead to children being taken into care, more misery for families—sometimes with accompanying abuse—and children under-achieving in school because they are so stressed by being divided from a family in a refugee camp in Kenya, Sudan or the horn of Africa, as is often the case in my constituency. Those children deserve to be represented so that they can have a family around them to give them support. The second point was about housing. Like every other constituency in London, mine is increasingly dominated by the private rented sector, which is now bigger than the owner-occupier sector and is increasing fast. Tenants face short-term tenure, difficulties with landlords, absentees and problems with repairs, and all the other insecurities involved in such situations, and they need, deserve and should have access to appropriate legal advice to ensure that the law is carried out and they receive the protection that is due to them. Yes, legal aid is expensive. When it was introduced in the 1940s by the very progressive Labour Government, it was seen as part of the welfare state. The welfare state included social security, housing, health, unemployment benefits and a right to access to justice. I honestly believe that the trend of cuts in legal aid means that universal access to justice is slowly disappearing before our very eyes, and that is wrong.