Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Newton, who I am tempted to call my noble friend even though technically he is not. I rise in support of Amendments 2, 19 and 29 in particular, although I do so with some trepidation because I am not a lawyer. After what my noble friend Lady Kennedy of The Shaws said, perhaps that is not such a bad thing after all. In fact, my first job was as a legal research officer with the Child Poverty Action Group. Many people assumed that I was a lawyer because the group did not have one in those days. From what we have already heard in relation to Amendment 1, this Bill is not about a narrow understanding of the law; it is about an understanding of the law as an important instrument of citizenship. These amendments are about something I spoke on at Second Reading, the relationship between the citizen and the state. I cannot believe that any Member of your Lordships’ House wants to weaken the position of the individual citizen against the state, yet my fear is that that is what this Bill will do in Part 1. I am a believer in the state, particularly the welfare state. But the state can loom very large and very oppressively in the lives of some of our most marginalised citizens. It is really important that they can turn to the legal system in their relations with the state. I also want to refer briefly—we will come back to this in later amendments—to the importance of the tribunal system. One of my first pieces of work as legal research officer at the Child Poverty Action Group was on one of the first empirical studies of the supplementary benefit appeal tribunal system. I was very privileged to be supervised by the late Professor John Griffiths, who I think would be horrified by the measures in front of us today. The appeal tribunal system of course has moved on since the 1970s. It is a very different system now. But something I learnt then, which is as true today, is the importance of people who appear before tribunals having adequate advice and assistance if they are to be able to make their case. Another point I made at Second Reading is that social security law—welfare law—has become much more complex since then. I prayed in aid the example of the CPAG’s national welfare benefits handbook. I wrote the first edition of that, which was about 20 pages. It is now 1,620 pages and probably grows every year. Even though we hope that the Welfare Reform Bill ultimately will simplify the system, it will still be very complex. The noble Lord, Lord Newton, has already referred to how important it is that people are supported through such big changes. The Government have put forward various arguments about why the legal aid system is not necessary for tribunals, one of which is that the law is not sufficiently complex. I am sure that we will come back to those arguments in greater detail. Earlier, we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, about how Lord Scarman wrestled for three days with his cleaner’s social security problem, which does not surprise me at all. The Government have suggested that people who need help can turn to Jobcentre Plus or the benefits advice line, but that is a bit like asking the victim of a burglary to turn to the burglar for advice on how to deal with it. I am not suggesting for a moment that those employed at Jobcentre Plus are a group of thieves but they are party to the case. The noble Lord, Lord Newton, talked about mediation not being appropriate. Similarly, it is not appropriate to expect those at the source of the problem in the first place—that is, the state in the form of Jobcentre Plus—to give advice on appealing against the decision. In their helpful report, the CPAG and Scope suggest that, often, that advice is incomplete or incorrect. I acknowledge the very good job that many people working in Jobcentre Plus are doing but they are not there to provide impartial advice to benefit claimants. It is sometimes suggested that legal advice makes the whole tribunal system too legalistic. But a number of groups, including Citizens Advice, have made the point that providing good legal advice can keep people out of the tribunal system when they should not be there—it is known as the triage role—and can send people to the right sources. Often, people think that they have a case to take to the tribunal system when they do not but, if they do have a case, it is important that they should feel comfortable going to the system. Another argument is that the tribunal system is user-friendly, but we have to think about who the users of the system are. By and large, noble Lords probably are not likely to have a social security problem and have to appear before an appeal tribunal. We have to put ourselves in the shoes of those who do have to appear before the tribunals and accept that, as the research carried out by Scope shows in relation to disabled people, this can be a very daunting experience. It is very daunting to have to know what evidence you need to assemble in order to appear before the tribunal and how to present your case. If you simply appear without having been given any support, often you will not even dare to go. The Minister has talked about being daunted at appearing before eminent lawyers in this House, but I do not think that that is anything like as daunting as it is for a social security claimant to appear before a tribunal. These people may have had very damaging relationships with the state in the past and therefore do not feel confident about going before something as official as a tribunal. The only other point I want to make is that we are not simply talking about first order appeals. What happens beyond those? I am talking about going to the Court of Appeal, the Supreme Court and even the European Court of Justice. Even at that point legal aid will not be available to support people, with the result that important issues of welfare law may not be adequately resolved. We are talking about a very small number of cases, so I wonder if the Minister could tell us in his response just how much money is being saved by removing legal aid from that level of appeal. I add that to the important list of questions asked by the noble Lord, Lord Newton. In conclusion, I return to the central point of these amendments. As we discuss all the aspects of Part 1, but also as we consider the Bill as a whole, I hope that we will bear in mind the central question of our responsibility to protect the rights of marginalised citizens in their relationship with the state.