Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

My Lords, until now, I have been happy to support every amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, but I have to say that on this one I find that I cannot give my support. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, that we are incredibly lucky in this jurisdiction to have a not-for-profit sector, as well as those solicitors who still do this work, which provides at very little cost a terrific service for people who otherwise would not get access to justice. They do so largely due to the good works of a lot of Lord Chancellors in the past but not least the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, who is not in his place now but was here earlier, who, in 1995 I believe, made it possible for law centres and CABs to receive legal aid and thus give the kind of advice that changes lives. I agree absolutely with what the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, has said. If that should disappear, it would be one of the scandals of the first few years of this century. If this amendment is intended somehow as an acceptable substitute for taking whole areas of legal aid, particularly social welfare law, out of scope, it has the potential be dangerous and short-sighted. I do not doubt for one second the good intentions and good faith of those who have put forward this amendment. But why do I say that? It seems to me to play entirely into the hands of a Government. It could be this Government or a future Government. I agree absolutely with my noble and learned friend Lord Goldsmith on this. Most likely the Lord Chancellor would be at liberty to pay whatever grant he wanted or no grant at all because the power is entirely discretionary as the amendment is drafted. We know that there are a multitude of not-for-profit advice centres. Well over 500 CABs, 60 law centres, and hundreds of small, sometimes specialist, centres deal with the type of issues with which Part 1 is concerned. Some receive legal aid and some do not. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, that it is not a perfect system by a long way. Given his background, what he has to say about localism is of huge interest, which I know from being the Minister some time ago. But at least under the present system, the Legal Services Commission grants contracts for legal aid for a length of time and it is not the Lord Chancellor’s job to grant those contracts. It is not perfect by a very long way but the contracts are intended to cover the country. At present, those contracts are one step removed from a politician’s stroke of the pen. In my view, that is an important consideration. Who will the Lord Chancellor fund? Of course, I am talking about a Lord Chancellor in the future. I am not talking about now. Will it be those he likes? Will it be those that are in his part of the country? The Lord Chancellor may be a Member of Parliament, as he is now. Will it be those who do not often sue the state or do not offend him or the Government? He could turn the tap off at any moment and the organisations would have no way of planning their present and their future. There would be no certainty. One of the criticisms made by the not-for-profit organisations I certainly remember hearing as a Minister was, ““Look, there is not enough continuity. We do not know about the future. How can we plan and become efficient organisations without knowing how long we will get contracts for?””. There may be not be enough continuity in the present system, but necessarily there would be no continuity under the system being mooted in this amendment. Frankly, it is an open invitation to a new Lord Chancellor, under pressure from the Chancellor of the Exchequer—and every Lord Chancellor I have ever heard of or spoken to has been under that pressure from the day he gets into office—just not to make the grants, and that will be it. The not-for-profit sector will collapse. I ask this question: if grants are the solution, where is the money coming from? If the money is there, why take social welfare law out of scope in the first place? Why not provide the rather limited, perhaps too limited, resources for social welfare law that are available at present? Of course we are open to discussion and further debate about this, but what we want to happen is that those areas of the law—in particular, social welfare law, which it is suggested should be taken out of scope by the Bill—should not be taken out of scope; they should remain in scope. The system does not work badly; in fact, I would go so far as to say that it is working well. There is no need for this. If I was the Minister tonight, I would bite off the arm of the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, and accept this amendment saying, ““Yes, I agree””. That is because, as it is presently drafted, I am afraid that it plays much too much into the Government’s hands.