Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

My Lords, I, too, should like to add to the laments that we all feel at the death of Lord Newton. On both sides of the Chamber, we all picture him standing stalwart, despite his obvious disability and discomfort—determined, as always, to give a fair view of the legislation. I thank the noble Lord, Lord McNally, for the concessions that he made, particularly his government amendment regarding the victims of trafficking. It is most welcome. I also thank him as I was one of those at the meeting—of all parties and none—at which we all put our views to him. However, there remains a need to provide greater protection for vulnerable children and young people. My Third Reading amendment, Amendment 5, is very similar—almost identical—to that of my noble friend Lady Grey-Thompson. The difference is mainly that it raises the upper age from 18 to 24 for this very vulnerable group. It would protect only the most vulnerable people—around 12,000 out of 69,000 18 to 24 year-olds who will lose access to legal aid, specifically those with a disability and those who have been in care. It is hard to think of groups of people who are more vulnerable than those covered by this amendment. Generally, young people are rarely equipped with the knowledge, skills and legal capacity to resolve their problems without expert advice. This particularly applies to these vulnerable young people, who are far more prone to experiencing multiple and severe problems and are therefore far more likely to require this specialist legal intervention to prevent their situation escalating and spiralling out of control. How are these young people expected to cope when they have problems if they cannot obtain legal aid? The House will not need reminding, particularly in this economic climate, that the country is experiencing record levels of youth unemployment, rising youth homelessness and increasing levels of adolescent mental health problems. These young people need special help to get them through to a more fulfilled adult life at less cost to the community. It cannot make any sense to deny them this access to the legal advice that they desperately need to help them resolve their problems and turn their lives around. The Government have said in their new cross-departmental youth policy that they believe in providing additional and early help to disadvantaged and vulnerable young people, including those in care and those with disabilities. Our amendment would help the Government to meet this commitment. It would protect young people who have a physical or mental impairment that has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on their ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities, according to the definition of disability that is used in the Equality Act 2010. Many of this group's problems are in the area of social welfare law, being to do with housing, debt and welfare benefits. The considerable changes that many of your Lordships in this Chamber debated during the passage of the Welfare Reform Bill will undoubtedly mean that more young people with disabilities will face social welfare problems and will need that help to understand and gain from the new benefits regime. It simply cannot be right to leave disabled young people without the support they need to enforce payment of their entitlements. As I have said, the amendment would also protect care leavers under the age of 25. This group is also highly vulnerable. Care leavers are far more likely to end up unemployed, homeless or in prison—alas, this will happen to too many of them—and to experience high levels of common social welfare problems. They will need good legal advice to avoid poor outcomes. The amendment would cost around £4 million, a figure far lower than the cost of not providing access to legal aid for these young people. Research by Youth Access shows that legal advice which is targeted at vulnerable groups is particularly cost-effective and that this group is more likely to experience stress, violence and homelessness if they do not manage to get good legal advice at an early stage. Each year, 750,000 young people aged between 16 and 24 become mentally or physically ill as a result of their unresolved social welfare problems. That is costing the NHS at least £250 million a year. Much of that cost could be avoided if those young people received better and earlier support. Research by JustRights shows that any savings made through denying young people civil legal aid are likely to be outweighed by increased costs in the criminal legal aid budget alone. The Local Government Association has said that it has concerns about the extra costs for local authorities arising from the withdrawal of legal aid from care leavers. This amendment not only makes economic sense but is the right and fair thing to do if we are serious about protecting these most vulnerable members of society. I very much hope that, when the time comes, everyone, including the Minister, will support it.