My Lords, in 1949, when the Legal Aid and Advice Act was brought in, the state of affairs in this country was radically different for the ordinary man and woman in the street from what it is now. I speak in terms of legal services and the availability of the same. In 1949, after the Legal Aid and Advice Act was passed and the scheme introduced, 95% of all law firms in the United Kingdom undertook legal aid. I can assure your Lordships that every single one of those firms would have done a great deal of pro bono work in the communities that they served. Indeed, not to have done so would have been a deathblow to their local reputation and workflow.
In the interim, everything has changed in that regard. Today, the number of firms doing substantial amounts of pro bono work and which are therefore available to the bemused citizen has, I am afraid, shrunk to a very small number. Indeed, the irony is that the bigger and richer the law firm, the less pro bono work it does. I speak as president of the Solicitors Pro Bono Group, or LawWorks as it is commonly known. In the mean time, the volume of legislation that we pass in this place has rocketed. Indeed, it is ironic that LASPO, the Act that underpins these amendments—I am speaking particularly to Amendment 176—is 302 pages long, is complex beyond measure and has rather more pagination than the entire statutes of 1906, which I had cause to look at the other day. Our output is something in the order of 13,000 to 15,000 pages of statute law a year, with only 2,000 or 3,000 pages of repeals. The problem for the ordinary citizen in terms of the law, access to the law and getting help and assistance when they desperately need it has never been remotely as great. Indeed, it is one factor in this strange mood that prevails in our country today—a mood of disillusionment and mistrust.
The amendment is absolutely essential. Make no mistake, judicial review is more and more important in the world that we inhabit, precisely because of the astonishing complexity and volume of the law with which we are surrounded and the need, therefore,
to enable citizens and organisations to have access to the courts for judicial review when it is needed. One might think that JR cases are rocketing, but according to the report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights in April this year on the implications for access to justice of the Government’s proposals to reform judicial review, that is not the case. That may be surprising, but I suspect it has as much to do with the lack of pro bono availability —although there are some wonderful exceptions—and the legal aid position as is. The proposal in Amendment 176 to prevent a future Lord Chancellor from imposing further eligibility criteria or restricting the scope of legal aid without coming back to Parliament must be right. I hope that the Minister, for whom I have great respect, will see the importance of this.
Access to justice is surely the ultimate hallmark of a democratic society that is working. We as a Parliament do not walk our own talk unless, as well as passing these tidal waves of legislation, we make available to the citizen the means of accessing that legislation when needed. Otherwise, frankly, we are hypocrites and aiding and abetting a society in which money wealth is ever more dominant. Where justice is concerned, that must surely be wholly unacceptable.
9.30 pm