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Ministerial Visits
Q10.[30903] Mr. Baker: When he next plans to visit the Lewes constituency.
The Prime Minister: I fear that I must give the hon. Gentleman the same reply as I gave him last time. I have no plans to visit his constituency yet. I am sorry about that.
Mr. Baker: I am disappointed and I shall keep trying. It is a great pity because many of my constituents who rely on public transport would like to meet the Prime
Minister. Is he aware that, since 1974, the cost of rail travel has increased by 78 per cent. above inflation and the cost of bus travel has increased by 57 per cent. above inflation but the cost of private car travel has decreased by 6.5 per cent? Is not that an indictment of the previous Government and a green tax in reverse? Will the right hon. Gentleman give an undertaking that in the weeks ahead the Government will take action to ensure that bus and rail fares are cut?
The Prime Minister: I cannot give that undertaking, but I can give an undertaking that the White Paper on the integrated transport strategy will deal precisely with how we ensure that the different forms of travel fit in with one another and how we make a regulatory system that matches the needs of consumers. What impact that will have on fares in the long term it is too early to say, but that approach is the right one--rather than leaving it to market forces--and I hope that it will be welcomed by the hon. Gentleman's constituents.
Engagements
Q11.[30904] Mr. Bill Michie: I welcome my right hon. Friend's answer to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone) on industrial relations and the forthcoming Bill. May I draw my right hon. Friend's attention to early-day motion 826 which concerns 350 workers who have been sacked by management even though they went through the proper legal procedures? Will the new legislation ensure a level playing field for workers and employers and prevent the present problem of the unions having to obey the law while, for some strange reason, employers can flout it?
The Prime Minister: The purpose of the proposals is to make it clear that there has to be fairness in the workplace. I know about the Magnet dispute since it happened just outside my constituency. I very much hope that the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service can be involved. I know that it was at one point, but it is not at present. I hope that the negotiations can resume. That is easily the best way to resolve the dispute.
Dr. Fox: Responsibility for abortion is not to be devolved to the Scottish Parliament, yet on 29 January, Hansard reported the Under-Secretary as saying--
Madam Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman knows that he may not use quotations at Question Time.
Dr. Fox: The Under-Secretary said that if there was to be change to the abortion law in Northern Ireland, it should be considered by a devolved assembly. Why should there be such a difference between Northern Ireland and Scotland?
The Prime Minister: Scotland and Northern Ireland need not necessarily be treated in the same way across the various programmes for devolution. One of the points of devolution is that what happens in Northern Ireland or in Scotland is a matter of debate and can be decided in different ways.
Q12.[30905] Ms Beverley Hughes: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the deal brokered by Kofi Annan to
allow access to presidential sites must be tested as soon as possible to ensure that Saddam Hussein does not renege on commitments that he has entered into? Does my right hon. Friend also agree that it is important that the policy of diplomacy backed by force remains in place?
The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Contrary to speculation, the Security Council resolution is a big step forward. It makes clear that the severest consequences will flow if there is any breach of
the agreement. That is written into the resolution and it sends the clear message to Saddam Hussein that he must allow inspectors in, and testing to begin, or force will inevitably follow as a result of his breaching the agreement. The mixture of diplomacy and force has got us to where we are, and it is right to continue to use it. British troops, with American troops, will remain in the Gulf to ensure that the agreement that Saddam Hussein's Government have entered into is tested, adhered to and obeyed.Legal Aid
3.31 pm
The Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department (Mr. Geoffrey Hoon): With permission, Madam Speaker, I should like to repeat a statement on improving access to justice that is being made in the other place by my noble and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor.
At present, the legal aid system is failing us all. The system is failing the millions of people on modest incomes who do not qualify for legal aid and simply cannot contemplate going to law because they would have to pay legal costs if they lost, and it is failing people on legal aid, because the Government cannot direct money to those who need it most and to those cases where there is a public interest in seeing justice done. Finally, the system is failing the taxpayer, who, year on year, is being asked to pay more and more, but can rarely get help from legal aid when it is needed.
Although legal aid is costing us more and more as costs run away, ahead of inflation, it is helping fewer and fewer people each year. It is, therefore, our intention to modernise the way in which civil cases are paid for. We want a system of civil justice which is there for everyone when they need it, not just the rich or the very poor. We intend to transform the legal aid scheme to ensure that we get good value for money from lawyers who are paid from legal aid, and so that we spend taxpayers' money on those who need it most and on those areas where it can do most good.
Achieving all our reforms will require the approval of Parliament through new primary legislation, but, even using existing powers, we can start the process of change. It is on that first stage that I wish to concentrate today.
The publication of the consultation paper marks the first stage of our modernisation of legal aid and legal services. When my noble and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor announced the programme of reform at the solicitors annual conference in October last year, he said:
The consultation paper invites views on a proposal that will allow the majority of people in England and Wales to secure access to justice. We propose to allow conditional fee agreements--no win, no fee agreements--to be used in all except family and criminal cases.
Conditional fees offer a new way for people to bring their cases. Lawyers share the risk of litigation with the client by agreeing to work without a fee if the case is lost. If the lawyer is successful, he is entitled to a success fee in addition to his normal fees. Although the maximum success fee can be up to 100 per cent., normally it is
50 per cent. or less. In nearly all cases, the lawyers also voluntarily limit the success fee to no more than 25 per cent. of the damages in any event. Conditional fees have been available since 1995 for a limited range of proceedings--personal injury, insolvency and human rights cases--and they are working well.
More than 30,000 people have taken advantage of this approach to bring personal injury claims. Many would have been unable to afford to pursue their claims without conditional fees. I refer to people who are only just above the legal aid limit--people who are far from well off. They constitute the great majority of the population who are in work, with families, mortgages and savings--or other assets--that mean that they are not eligible for legal aid, but who cannot contemplate the open-ended commitment of meeting lawyers' bills. Only the very rich can face the thought of lawyers' bills without any financial fears, and even they must worry sometimes. To continue to restrict narrowly the use of conditional fee agreements is to deny an avenue of access to justice to the majority of people.
The consultation paper seeks views on any changes to the current law and practice that might improve the operation and use of conditional fees--for example, by allowing the success fee and the insurance premium to be recoverable from the losing party. It also invites views on the Government's plans to begin modernising legal aid. Over the past seven years, the cost of civil and family legal aid has tripled to some £671 million. The average cost has grown from £1,442 to £2,684--53 per cent. above the rate of inflation. The number of acts of help funded in 1996-97 fell by about 39,000. Taxpayers are paying more and getting less. That cannot be right, and it cannot continue.
We need a modern legal aid system, in which only cases that cannot reasonably be funded in any other way, and which have the necessary priority, are backed by the taxpayer. It has never been our intention to abolish civil legal aid, as has been wrongly claimed. We want to focus taxpayers' money where it is most needed and can do most good--on matters connected with social welfare, such as employment, housing, dealing with debt, state benefits and actions against officialdom and bureaucracy. To achieve that clear focus on social welfare issues, the Government intend most money or damages claims to be funded through conditional fees in future. Consequently, they propose to transfer most money and damages claims currently supported by legal aid to the conditional fee system.
However, as my noble and learned Friend told the other place on 9 December, we do not intend to remove legal aid from housing cases, in which the main purpose of the action is often to achieve a home fit to live in. That is precisely the kind of case to which legal aid ought to be directed.
In addition, the ability to challenge public authorities through judicial review is a necessary check on the use of the power of the state, and a positive encouragement to maintain high standards in public administration or public bodies. The poor must also be able to exercise that right of challenge.
Legal aid will remain available for those who qualify. We also believe that legal aid must continue to be available when a person claims to be the victim of wrongdoing by public authorities--for example,
the police. There, too, the ability to challenge misdeeds is an encouragement to maintain high standards and proper behaviour to those over whom public bodies exercise authority.
The extension of the availability of conditional fee agreements will provide an alternative means for people to bring most money or damages claims without public funding. Our aim is to create conditions in which anyone--regardless of financial status--can use conditional fees to bring cases, across the whole range of litigation in which the main remedy sought is money or damages. However, we recognise that the current financial structure of solicitors' firms may not allow that, and that the insurance and finance industry needs time to develop products to assist in the expansion of the use of conditional fee agreements. The Government therefore propose a measured approach to encouraging this change to take place.
The Government propose to remove most personal injury actions from the scope of legal aid by the middle of the year. Lawyers working in that area have considerable experience of taking cases using conditional fee agreements. Similarly, the insurance industry has developed products, with premiums that, in most cases, are about £155 or less. The Government will work with the insurance and banking industries to help them develop more and even better products to allow everyone, regardless of their financial standing, to bring cases using conditional fee arrangements. That combination--the experience of lawyers in that area of litigation, and developed insurance products--is sufficient to allow such cases to be alternatively financed through conditional fee agreements.
In addition, there are certain categories of proceedings that the Government believe no longer have sufficient priority to command continued public funding. It is important that scarce public funds are directed to where help is most needed. The Government are not persuaded that cases that involve, for example, disputes arising from the course of running a business, inheritance, partnerships or trusts meet that criterion. Nor do we believe that taxpayers' money should be used to help neighbouring landowners to settle boundary disputes. In those cases, there will be assets at issue, which would allow the case to be taken with a conditional fee arrangement. In any case, the issues will generally be too narrow or too specific to deserve the use of public money, when such support means less for other matters of greater public importance. The consultation paper seeks views on the proposals to remove those categories from the scope of legal aid.
The Government have been listening carefully to comments that we have received regarding medical negligence cases. The Government believe that many lawyers practising in that area need to modernise the way in which they run their firms, so that they can structure their finances to enable them to take cases on behalf of clients, regardless of their financial standing. However, we accept that it will take time. Therefore, the Government do not propose to remove such cases from the scope of legal aid for the present.
However, we intend to do what we can to reduce the high failure rate of such cases. It cannot be right that only in as few as 17 per cent. of the cases that are supported
by a legal aid certificate is more than £50 recovered in damages. Medical negligence cases should be conducted by practitioners who are experienced in that field of litigation. We cannot any longer allow inexperienced practitioners to take such cases. I have no doubt that part of the reason why the failure rate is so high is that lawyers take such cases without the necessary experience. Therefore, they are unable to make timely, informed decisions on the merits of a case, or on whether an offer of settlement is appropriate, or reasonable in amount.
It serves no one's interests if cases are brought with little prospect of success--least of all the victims of the alleged negligence. Therefore, the consultation paper invites views on a proposal to allow only experienced practitioners to take cases on behalf of assisted persons in that field. We propose that the Legal Aid Board should establish contracts only with lawyers of sufficient experience. Anyone who is granted legal aid to pursue a medical negligence case will be required to use a lawyer who holds a contract with the board. We are keen to hear what criteria could be used to establish whether a lawyer is sufficiently experienced to hold a contract to take cases on behalf of those receiving legal aid.
We intend to remove the remaining money or damages claims from the scope of legal aid as experience of conditional fees among lawyers and insurers develops and they become more widely and readily available.
The Government recognise that, during a transitional period, help will be needed to assist in the transfer of funding away from legal aid. There may be some extraordinary cases among the categories to be removed that lawyers may not initially be able to support fully on conditional fee arrangements. The Government believe that, in time, it will be possible for such cases to be financed solely by conditional fee agreements. Therefore, the Government intend to establish a limited transitional fund. That fund would provide support, for example, in cases involving very high costs--few lawyers' firms are financially structured to carry such cases, because they could not afford the risk of losing--or where there are high investigative costs of establishing the merits of the case.
We expect the need for the fund to support such cases to cease because we believe that, in the long term, those cases will find lawyers whose practices are financially structured to take them on under conditional fee agreements. The transitional fund would also provide help in cases that we exclude from legal aid but which demonstrate a significant wider public interest. That would allow us to start to provide assistance in that type of case under the transitional arrangements, ahead of primary legislation to establish a public interest fund. The size of the transitional fund will be set each year according to other priorities for spending legal aid money and the diminishing extent to which the fund is needed.
The Government will develop a modernised legal aid system. We are working toward a system in which we can control expenditure; obtain good value for public money; and target legal aid where there is the greatest need and it will do most good.
In future, the Government's main priority for using public money to provide legal services will be to assist those who are excluded from society because they are unable to exercise their legal rights. The Government will achieve that through the legal aid scheme and through the creation of a community legal aid service.
"it is essential that the details"
of our proposals
"are right . . . We shall be consulting widely and openly".
That is precisely what we have been doing in the four months since October, and will continue to do for a further two months of the formal consultation period. This is a listening Government: we are listening to views on these proposals, and will continue to do so. We have had detailed discussions with the legal professions and with many interest groups--and more are planned. Their comments have contributed to the development of the proposals, but we shall not confine our listening to the legal profession, because our aim is justice for all.
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