Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

He will be very annoyed; that is what his father was called. It is one of the problems of being in the House of Lords that you remember their fathers. I am working with Francis Maude on our transparency agenda. On a number of things that have been, and will be, discussed in this Bill, some of my noble friends talk as if the legal profession was set in aspic. I suspect that we are about to see an enormous change in the legal profession. As in any sector where there is change, it is unsettling, but it could also be very enabling. I wonder whether alternative business structures, whereby accessing a lawyer might not be so formidable as calling on the high-street solicitor but a matter of going to somewhere in your local Co-op, might make a difference in terms of access. Noble Lords underestimate just how willing people are to use the telephone and, increasingly, their e-mails and computers to get information. One has only to see the impact of eBay to appreciate how confidently people use that kind of technology for everyday use. The idea that people will get their advice via telephones and computers is not so far fetched. The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, asked me what the department was doing. Through Directgov, the public can gain access to a range of information online about the justice system, including legal aid. The introductory page on legal aid on Directgov includes specific information about accessing the community legal advice helpline via the telephone or by completing a web-based online form to book a call back from the helpline in a language and at a time convenient to the caller. Plans are for e-mail advice and community legal advice, and the Legal Services Commission is currently working to enhance the facilities for clients to access advice electronically from the community legal advice helpline via secure e-mail. Initial access to the CLA e-mail advice service will be via the current ““contact us, call me back”” page on Directgov. Online general services come in three forms: free web-page services provided by a variety of commercial and not-for-profit organisations such as National Debtline, the Adviceguide from Citizens Advice, and consumer credit counselling services. I went to the Law Society awards ceremony earlier this year and it was interesting how many of the award-winning companies had online services. Some of them went quite a way down in terms of advice before you pressed the button to start being charged. Again, online services are an interesting development. These online and digital resources also explain court processes and procedures and how court hearings work, which is particularly important for litigants in person. There are a number of links that demonstrate how comprehensive these resources are. They give advice on, for example, how to avoid repossession, what to do if you get into mortgage arrears and a whole variety of other services. I am suggesting that part of what the noble Lord, Lord Bach, raised in this amendment, which I welcome because it allowed us to tease out some of these matters, is that a great part of our responsibilities under this section will be carried through by the new technologies. We believe that the public, who in other parts of our life show an amazing capacity to use these new technologies, will find them an important part of understanding and having access to our legal system. We resist the amendment because we think that this should not be a duty, although it is certainly a direction of travel for the MoJ. We regard the creation of a duty at this stage to be too onerous and potentially very costly as a duty implies a far greater requirement to provide an all encompassing service. I hope that the noble Lord will accept where our intentions lie and where our direction of travel lies, and at this stage will agree to withdraw his amendment.