Civil Justice and Legal Aid

Part of Prayers – in the House of Commons at 1:17 pm on 21 November 1997.

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Photo of Eleanor Laing Eleanor Laing Conservative, Epping Forest 1:17, 21 November 1997

My hon. Friend makes a good point. There is no question of making it more difficult for genuine litigants to come forward and gain access to justice. The aim is to stop those who come forward because they are encouraged to do so by ambulance-chasing solicitors. They are a minority, but they have been milking the legal aid system for years and have made it more difficult for genuine litigants and lawyers with good intentions to bring serious cases before the courts.

My greatest concern is about the Government's proposals for introducing conditional fees. My first concern is the effect that this would have on the legal profession, for which I have every respect. I am not here to indulge in any lawyer-bashing—[Interruption.] Not at all—my lawyer-bashing concerned a tiny minority. The legal profession is honourable and we want it to stay that way. A lawyer's professional objective involvement in his client's case will be diluted, or even removed, if we introduce conditional fees and a contingency basis on which lawyers will be paid. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough and the hon. Member for Great Grimsby gave excellent examples of cases where such concerns might arise and I shall not repeat them.

We must bear in mind the fact that there are many reasons for a case succeeding or not succeeding; it is not just down to the efforts of the lawyers concerned. Not every case that is brought is an interesting Rumpole of the Bailey affair where the solicitor or barrister does something clever at the eleventh hour to win the case for his client. It is worth noting, incidentally, that the creator of Rumpole does not support the Lord Chancellor's proposals. We thought at one point that he would be Lord Chancellor himself and it is perhaps a pity that he is not, as I agree with his views on this point. If a lawyer's income becomes involved in the outcome of a case, the lawyer will inevitably lose his objectivity, however hard he may try not to let that happen—my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough made a good case in that respect.

My second concern is that conditional fees could put our society in great danger of becoming even more litigious than it already is. Sometimes good ideas come to Britain from the United States of America and I encourage such good new ideas—I am no more interested in American-bashing than I am in lawyer-bashing—but this is not one of them. Encouraging litigation on everything, as the introduction of contingency fees would do, would make our society as litigious as that of the United States. Such a move would encourage the idea that whatever happens to anyone, in whatever walk of life, there is always someone else to blame. If we perpetuate such a culture of blame, we dilute the concept of personal responsibility. Every time someone trips on a paving stone—or, as in a recent case, spills a cup of coffee on themself—they find someone else to blame. It is not reasonable to waste a court's time deciding what temperature a cup of coffee should be sold at and whose fault it is when a cup of coffee bought by an American lady in a London restaurant is spilt. That is spurious and ridiculous litigation.

We must not enter into such a litigious culture that we allow our courts to be blocked up with such trivia when there are important matters of justice and legal precedent to be decided. We all want fair and equal administration of justice, and we all want access to the courts for everyone, no matter what their income, means or profession, but let us not go down the slippery slope of becoming ever more litigious and encouraging frivolous use of the courts. Let us continue to try to provide justice for all. Sadly, the Government's present proposals will not achieve that aim.