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Mr. John Smith (Vale of Glamorgan): Will the consultation genuinely listen to the user groups, in particular, and to those very local authorities and other elected bodies with which we want to work in partnership, to provide the best possible health care? Will my hon. Friend be prepared to listen to those views and, indeed, if need be, to change the recommendations that are before us?
Mr. Griffiths: I shall want to ensure that, as a result of the consultation, the new trusts that I am proposing
come forward with proposals that show an identifiable gain in the delivery of health services in their areas. If they cannot show that, they will not be approved. If there is a need to change the proposals in any significant way, a completely new round of consultations will have to take place, but I want to make it absolutely clear to everyone that the merged trusts, the individual hospitals involved and the local populations will not see a diminution of health services that are currently provided.
Local health groups, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent alluded, will be vital in providing the service. They will work from a plan that has built into it improvements in health service delivery, so there will be no question of the groups facing a hospital that has lost services; that is not part of the plan.
We want to ensure that local general practitioners, social service representatives, other professionals in the health service and interested local health service bodies play a full part in ensuring that their nearest hospital is the one where services are provided for the people in their area, and that mental health and community services will be provided in a way that best meets the needs of local people. That is the whole purpose of carrying through the trust reconfiguration. Anything less would fly in the face of our commitments to put right the wrongs of the past and to improve health services.
On resource allocation, we are currently reviewing the allocation formula to ensure that it takes account of best practice elsewhere and of relevant data on health need. The working group has not yet reported its findings to me, but it may recommend changes to the current formula or the introduction of a new approach. At this stage, it is not possible to say exactly what will happen, but I believe that we could introduce a wider range of variables into the formulae that take account of particular health circumstances.
The future health service will be different. Local health groups will have a fundamental role in defining and commissioning primary, community and secondary care. They will commission local health care from the NHS trusts. The trusts will simply retain their existing responsibilities for providing services according to the commissioners' requirements. The doctors, health care professionals and local authority social services departments will decide what services they want from the trust.
Mr. Edwards:
Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Griffiths:
Much as I would like to give way, I cannot, because I am in the last minute.
We shall soon publish a Green Paper focusing on the development of a public health strategy. We shall seek to improve the health of people in Wales--
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst):
Order. The Minister will have to give way now, because we must move on to the next subject.
Mr. Tim Yeo (South Suffolk):
I am grateful for the opportunity to raise the issue of the Legal Aid Board and its actions--or more particularly, its inactions--in the case of my constituent Mrs. Stephanie Atkinson.
Mrs. Atkinson was divorced in 1991. At that time a settlement was agreed allowing her to remain in the marital home. She acquired her husband's share of the equity and accepted responsibility for the mortgage, while Mr. Atkinson retained the benefit of two endowment policies. After the divorce, Mrs. Atkinson obtained part-time employment, and was in receipt of income support for a period. Because of the payment of that benefit, the Child Support Agency intervened, requesting that Mr. Atkinson increase his maintenance payment for the two children of the marriage--two boys aged14 and 12.
Using different solicitors from those who had acted for him over the divorce, Mr. Atkinson attempted to have the original divorce settlement set aside, seeking new terms less advantageous to my constituent, which involved, among other things, the transfer of a share of the equity in the marital home to him. Mrs. Atkinson resisted that, and the matter went to court in Bury St. Edmunds, where, on 8 April 1994, it was decided that there was no case to be heard. The costs of the action were awarded against Mr. Atkinson.
Mr. Atkinson undertook that attempt to alter the original divorce settlement for his own benefit. Mrs. Atkinson's refusal to accept the proposed change was vindicated by the court. In bringing the action, Mr. Atkinson received legal aid, perhaps because he had been out of work for a period following the divorce. However, he was working again by April 1994.
The problem facing my constituent stems from the fact that the Legal Aid Board has a charge over her house resulting from the original divorce settlement. As the charge was not registered until after 1994, she did not know the precise amount until recently. She incurred legal costs of just over £3,000 at the time of the divorce. If she sells her home, she will have to repay that sum to the board. That aspect of the matter is not in dispute, and has always been accepted by Mrs. Atkinson.
Following Mr. Atkinson's subsequent action, the board is seeking to enforce the charge over Mrs. Atkinson's home in the larger sum of about £5,500. That sum appears to include Mr. Atkinson's legal costs from his unsuccessful 1994 action and interest, which is accruing daily at 8 per cent. per annum even on the additional disputed sum relating to Mr. Atkinson's costs.
The Legal Aid Board is seeking to recover from Mrs. Atkinson the costs that were incurred by Mr. Atkinson in an unsuccessful attempt to improve his position at her expense. That is a clear and serious breach of natural justice. Mrs. Atkinson did not initiate the action. Her refusal to accept a change to the original settlement was justified, yet she is required to pay the costs of her ex-husband's legal action, despite the fact that his income is now significantly higher than hers.
Mrs. Atkinson explained the circumstances to me in March last year at my constituency surgery. She is supporting herself and her two sons through full-time
employment, and is doing everything she can to avoid becoming a burden on the taxpayer or on anyone else. She is naturally dismayed at having to meet her ex-husband's legal costs.
After our initial meeting, I contacted the Land Registry to seek the removal of the charge that the Legal Aid Board had over her house. As Mrs. Atkinson does not dispute that some money would be payable to the Legal Aid Board if she sold her home, the removal of the charge is not possible. I also contacted people at the Cambridge area office of the Legal Aid Board, who explained that, if they could not recover the costs of the second action from Mr. Atkinson, they would seek to recover them from Mrs. Atkinson. The charge over her home would have to be increased by the amount of the potentially uncollected costs.
In April last year, Mrs. Atkinson made it clear that she did not feel that the Legal Aid Board had made sufficient effort to recover the costs from her husband. I share that view, and conveyed it to the Cambridge office of the Legal Aid Board in a letter on 7 April. The reply simply suggested that, if she was dissatisfied with the board's efforts to recover costs from Mr. Atkinson, she could pursue the matter through its complaints procedure.
After the general election, I contacted the Legal Aid Board head office in London, who wrote to me on 1 July confirming that £1,884.63 of the costs related to Mr. Atkinson's unsuccessful action, and that interest was accruing on those costs. In August, I was informed that the relevant file, which should have been kept by the Cambridge area office, had been destroyed, making it difficult to determine whether the value of the endowment policies that Mr. Atkinson retained after the divorce had been taken into account when the board decided not to pursue him for the recovery of his costs.
I was also concerned to learn that, if Mr. Atkinson had used those endowment policies as security for the purchase of a further home after his divorce, the board would not be entitled to take their value into account when assessing his means for enforcement purposes. That is another serious injustice. Although Mr. Atkinson can shelter his assets to prevent the Legal Aid Board from recovering legal costs from him, Mrs. Atkinson--the innocent party--cannot take similar action. I hope that the Minister will comment on that injustice.
On 12 August, the Minister wrote me a general letter, which did not directly address the issues raised by the case. A further letter from him on 22 September added little to his earlier reply. I have read those letters again this morning, and I find it hard to believe that he read either of my letters to him about the case before sending his replies.
At that point, the Minister asked the chief executive of the Legal Aid Board to contact me. On 19 September, I received a letter containing the extraordinary assertion that the board was not trying to recover from my constituent the costs that had been incurred by Mr. Atkinson. If that assertion was remotely true, I would not need to raise the matter now.
The chief executive of the Legal Aid Board agreed to re-examine the matter of the endowment policies. By that time, I was able to confirm that the policies were not linked to the purchase of another home by Mr. Atkinson--
information that had originally been given to the Legal Aid Board, at the beginning of 1997, by Mrs. Atkinson's solicitors.
Although I was assured that I would be kept informed, the trail went cold for almost three months before the Legal Aid Board wrote again, suggesting that Mrs. Atkinson could take action against Mr. Atkinson to recover those costs. However, the board's own view was that it would not be cost-effective for the board itself to do so.
Not only was no reason given to explain why Mrs. Atkinson, rather than the board, should have to take the action, but the suggestion completely overlooked the fact that Mrs. Atkinson is understandably reluctant to initiate an action against her former husband, for fear of the damage that it might to do to their already fragile relationship, the nature of which leaves her extremely vulnerable to retaliation.
There the matter now rests--a situation which is worthy of Charles Dickens. My constituent--a divorced mother, struggling to support herself and her two children--is faced with supine bureaucracy on all sides. When her former husband attempted to vary the terms of a previously agreed divorce settlement to her disadvantage, she wished to protect her position and that of her children. The court found in her favour, but the Legal Aid Board still required her to meet the costs of her husband's failed action.
The same board--having destroyed a file that was clearly still active, and having requested information that had been supplied to it months earlier--has, after a further three months' delay, decided that it is unable, for reasons that are completely unexplained, to take any action to recover the costs from Mr. Atkinson. The sums may not seem enormous to the board, but they are of great significance to my constituent.
Two issues of principle are also involved. First, my constituent should not be expected to pay the costs of an action--which she won--brought against her by her ex-husband for his own purposes. Secondly, it is wrong for the board, with all the resources at its command, to suggest that my constituent should have to initiate the recovery action against her former husband. It was the board's failure to act that caused the problem initially.
I should be grateful if the Minister would address those two issues. I am sure that he will agree that the system should not operate so obviously to the disadvantage of my constituent.
Thirdly, I should be grateful also if the Minister will also explain just what action the Legal Aid Board has taken to try to recover Mr. Atkinson's costs from him. As the Minister knows, the board has a statutory duty to recover money expended on a legally aided case. So far, the board seems to be interpreting that duty in an extraordinarily one-sided manner, by looking exclusively to Mrs. Atkinson for its costs.
As my third request was not in the draft of my speech, which I sent to the Minister's office, I shall understand if he would prefer to write to me with a detailed answer to it.
1.30 pm
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