Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

My Lords, I should like also to speak to Amendments 35 and 89. These amendments relate to the ability of claimants, the majority of whom are disabled, to appeal against decisions on their entitlement to welfare benefits. The intention behind these amendments is to protect some of the most vulnerable people in our society. The Bill as it stands would remove social welfare cases from the scope of legal aid, which would have an adverse and disproportionate impact on disabled people in particular, and would leave them unable effectively to challenge decisions when they are let down by the system. Legal aid is currently available to assist individuals with a range of welfare benefit issues, from navigating complex benefit administration to reviewing and appealing against official decisions. When appealing against such decisions, advice is available to clients before appeal and tribunal, but legal aid does not cover legal representation—and there is no suggestion that it should. A number of noble Lords have already made the point that the welfare benefits system is complex, and more than half the welfare benefit assistance that is funded through legal aid relates to disabled people. However, despite the best efforts of all involved in a claimant’s initial application, mistakes are frequently made, and these are well documented. The need for such legal aid is best demonstrated by the fact that nearly 40 per cent of all appeals against work capability assessment decisions are upheld. In addition, between October 2008 and February 2010—a period of just 17 months—60 per cent of disabled people who appealed were eventually found to qualify for employment and support allowance, even though they had initially been assessed as having no factors that would affect their ability to work. The proposals in the Bill would, every year, deny specialist legal advice for complex welfare problems to more than 130,000 people, of whom nearly 80,000 are disabled. Without legal aid, the ability of people to appeal against a decision would be undermined because the rules for benefit eligibility are extremely difficult to understand. To give just one example, the complexity of the extensive legal precedents determining the criteria for being classed as virtually unable to walk make professional legal advice vital for anyone even thinking of appealing against a welfare benefit decision. We all recognise the need to make economies but the Government’s own impact assessment puts the spending on legal aid for welfare benefits at just £25 million, compared to a total legal aid budget of £2 billion. This is a relatively minor saving but it would have a major effect on large numbers of vulnerable people who need help with appealing when mistakes have been made about their entitlement to benefits. I also argue that failure to provide timely legal advice to assist disabled people who are put on the wrong benefit is a false economy that will almost certainly result in additional demands being placed on services such as the NHS, rather than delivering the savings that the Government are hoping for. To make matters worse, the Bill is being considered at the same time that the Government are undertaking a dramatic overhaul of the welfare benefits system. With a reform on this scale, there will be a new and unfamiliar set of complexities to navigate through for both claimants and officials. During the transition, there is bound to be an increase in the number of inaccurate benefit decisions made and a consequent need for legal advice to challenge these. I share the Government’s desire to reduce the number of appeals against decisions, but this reduction must not happen because the loss of legal aid prevents disabled people from challenging decisions. I therefore commend these amendments to the Committee as a means of securing justice for some of the most vulnerable people in our society whose needs are constantly overlooked. I beg to move.