Orders of the Day — Legal Advice and Assistance Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 10 February 1972.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mr Geoffrey Howe Mr Geoffrey Howe , Reigate 12:00, 10 February 1972

I know that point can be advanced but I do not think that it was accepted by the committee. The question has been canvassed in so many places and on so many occasions that no one concerned could feel that he could disregard it for long. I cannot say more about it now save that the advice and assistance with which the Bill deals will enable anyone appearing before any of the tribunals we have been talking about to get such advice about how to present his case, how to send a letter to the tribunal and so on, which in a practical way he would not previously have been able to get. We are, therefore, advancing along the right road.

There may be some possible misunderstanding about the capital limit of £125 and the £500 capital limit in the ordinary Legal Aid and Advice Scheme. The capital limits in the scheme generally were considered by the advisory commit- tee and reported on in April last year. The committee pointed out—this should not be overlooked—that in the ordinary legal aid scheme an assisted person contributes all his disposable capital above £125 and it may be that he is refused legal aid altogether if it is more than £500 and he can proceed without legal aid. The £125 in this scheme is not very different from the £125 limit in the other scheme because in this scheme the maximum contribution is of the amount I have indicated, £12. It is simply a question of whether someone with more than £125 should or should not be allowed to contribute £125 under this scheme. He cannot be required under this scheme to pay the entire cost of litigation. It is right to say that the advisory committee is now reviewing the capital limits generally. So this part of the scheme, as also the general legal aid scheme, will be considered by the committee.

Disregards under this scheme are the same as those under the ordinary legal aid scheme, save that the test will be administered by a solicitor in his office and will generally be on a rather simpler basis, but the result should be the same. The hon. and learned Member for Leith asked whether it was right that 60 per cent. of applicants for advice and assistance should get that help free. One cannot give a definite answer to this. The number of those who get free legal aid is about 50 per cent. and there is no reason to suppose that it would not be the same here. Also in answer to the hon. and learned Member, there is no reason to suppose that Clause 2 provisions apply only to solicitors in private practice.

In answer to questions asked by a number of hon. Members, the provisions cover advice with reference to the making of separation agreements and the negotiations of settlements are subject to any regulations made under the Bill and this would also cover advice on the making of wills. I say that because one can visualise circumstances in which complication could arise if this were quite general. Of course, they do not cover appeals about bail but they cover the availability of advice in respect of such appeals. I have noted the number of hon. Members on both sides of the House who have referred to the importance of that topic.

One hon. Member asked whether Law Society solicitors can be permanently attached to the staff of law centres. I believe that the hon. and learned Member for Rowley Regis and Tipton (Mr. Peter Archer) asked whether the Mary Ward and Cambridge House centres would be taken over by the Law Society. There is certainly no prospect of taking over existing going concerns. As a matter of theory, a liaison officer of the Law Society could be attached to them but that would not be usual in practice because of dual control. That is why one envisages a Law Society centre with Law Society liaison officers under the existing £25 scheme.

The hon. and learned Member for Leith asked if it were the case that solicitors would be expected to collect contributions up to the limit. The answer is "Yes"; that is so. They would collect up to the limit just as at present they would collect a contribution from a private client in private practice to the extent of their charge and then collect the balance either from the opposing party, if there is one, or from the legal aid office. The particular point raised by the hon. and learned Member was whether that was acceptable as a system, and the matter has also been raised by the Law Society of Scotland. My right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Advocate wrote on 1st February to the Scottish Law Society in these terms: Where a contribution is payable … we consider it reasonable to ask the solicitor to claim the appropriate amount from his client, in the same way as he would claim his fee if the client's means took him outside the scope of the scheme. He went on to argue that up to that point it is not unreasonable.

Hon. Members have pointed out that under Clause 4(3) the charge on moneys recovered could result in a situation in which all the moneys recovered went on paying legal expenses and none went to the person on whose behalf the claim was made. Several hon. Members gave examples of hardship where that could arise. I can only say on this point that it has been a familiar part of the legal aid scheme up to the present. Some solutions that were adopted—for example, under the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme, of excluding claims of less than a certain figure altogether so as to prevent the possibility of small claims being recovered and then taken in costs—would not apply in the ordinary legal aid scheme. I do not think that I can offer hope of any ready or immediate solution to that problem.

My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Southport, with his extensive experience of the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments and the Joint Consolidation Committee, drew attention to Clause 6(3) and queried whether it was proper for the power of modification of the Statute itself to be taken in the provision. We shall not have the advantage of his continued surveillance of us on this point in Standing Committee if those who make the decisions about these things have heard his plea, but a modification power for the application of the provisions to particular circumstances of that kind is by no means without precedent. I would not like to say without checking how frequently it is used, but if my hon. and learned Friend looks at Section 12(3) of the Legal Aid and Advice Act, 1949, he will find there readily enough an example to reassure him that this is not a violently revolutionary power.

I close on a point which many hon. Members touched upon—the need for everyone to promote amongst lay people far more than amongst lawyers an awareness of what the Bill is doing. We must ensure as far as we can that there is a proper response and that we make known as far as possible, in accordance with the advice given by the advisory committee, the availability of this new legal advice and assistance service, because it truly is a system for using lawyers as prevention or conciliation officers rather than as people one calls in when the situation has deteriorated much too far.

Some hon. Members have tended to argue that there is a gulf of class between most lawyers and most clients in the legal desert which is at the heart of the difficulty of making legal services available there. I would not deny that in all situations lack of familiarity between the mores of people of different classes can sometimes create misunderstanding, but I think that the problem with the law is more related to the apparent aloofness and remoteness of the kind of work we do. It is as possible for an aggressively working-class solicitor to be remote and aloof as it is for an aggressively working-class doctor or surgeon. The main thing to remember is that, whether we sit in a white coat in an out-patients' department or don a wig in a county court robing room, we are dealing with people who come to these places as infrequently as they can and are in any event frightened to do so. We should try to represent as far as we can the humanity of service and overcome the gap which exists.

My feeling is that advertising of an institutional kind, saying "If you want to get ahead get a lawyer", and so on, is not as effective as advertising of an institutional kind coupled with identification of the places where a person can get this service. I would like to see an extension not of appearances by lawyers on television but of advertisements in local newspapers to which people could refer when they have to say, "I want a lawyer. Where can I find one?" It is along these lines that the provisions of this widely-welcomed Bill will fulfil the proper service of helping citizens to get the rights to which they are entitled from an effective and modern legal system.