Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

My Lords, I speak as the father of a daughter with Down's syndrome, who over the years has had to face complex welfare benefit issues. My own experience has taught me that it is not only the severely disabled for whom welfare support is complex—it can be even more so for those who suffer from a range of disabilities, each of which may in itself be classed as mild. There have been times when my daughter has been let down by the system and then, being extremely vulnerable, she has needed those able to act as advocates on her behalf. My daughter, though, is one of the fortunate ones. She comes from a supportive family, has reasonably articulate parents and a mother who has used both her personal and professional expertise to support advocacy networks and provide advocacy support for others. What of those who do not have such resources available to them? Many of them depend for legal and procedural advice on not-for-profit agencies such as Citizens Advice. Such organisations provide essential help to ensure that disabled people have access to the benefits and support to which they are entitled, but these agencies also need support in the vital work that they do. What Amendments 11 and 12 seek to achieve is important in providing the safety net that will enable such access and support to continue. If either were to be accepted, it would offer provisions much narrower in scope than those in existing legislation but would ensure that the resources were there for those who face both disability and, additionally, the kind of complex welfare benefits issues that arise from their disability, in order to be able to challenge decisions that adversely affected them through review, supersession or appeal. As the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, has pointed out, we are at a time of unprecedented upheaval in the welfare system; I see that day to day for myself. I do not criticise that; in fact I am in favour of much of that change and I understand it. Amid such wholesale change, though, with its attendant impact on the lives of some of the most vulnerable in our society, safeguarding the minimal access to legal aid in these circumstances is more important and necessary, rather than less. I turn to Amendments 21 and 46, both of which I support. I do not add much to the weight of words that we have already heard in support of them, but I want to return to the Minister's assurance, which has already been quoted, that as far as possible the intention of the Government is that where children are involved, legal aid will still be provided. We have also heard that on the basis of the Legal Services Commission's data for 2009-10, around 6,000 children under 18 will no longer receive legal aid, including cases regarding immigration, welfare and education. In that context, I return to the assurance offered by the Government that, for cases that would be excluded from the scope of legal aid, there would be a safety net in the form of the exceptional funding scheme. However, that in itself raises a number of questions. How adequately will ““exceptional”” be defined? Will it be driven by need or by available funding? Will there be rights of appeal? What will its real impact be? We have heard how the Children's Society estimates that just over 4,000 cases for under-18s will be excluded from scope and not receive exceptional funding, yet, according to the Government's own estimates, ensuring that all children under 18 had access to legal help and, crucially, representation would cost just £10 million—a relatively small cost for a very great gain. However, if legal aid is not to be available in these circumstances, where exactly are alternative sources of funding to come from? I am very grateful that several people have made reference in this debate to the tremendous work undertaken by the Children's Society and the evidence that it has put forward in support of Amendments 21 and 46. For 120 years, the Children's Society has been deeply concerned to make childhood better for all children through direct action to prevent their feeling excluded, isolated or abandoned. Rather, its aim is a world and society in which all children and young people are respected, valued and heard. If you are a child with a physical or mental disability, a child who has been involved in trafficking, or a child who has been abused or neglected by carers, your experience of childhood is not one of being respected, valued and heard. However, as such a child, you might rightly expect that the law of the land in which you find yourself will ensure that such respect, valuing and listening will be available to you in any legal process, particularly since many of the scenarios to which these amendments refer can be complex and intimidating, even to those for whom resource, support and advice are readily to hand.