HL Deb 11 November 1975 vol 365 cc1680-8

3.17 p.m.

The LORD CHANCELLOR

My Lords, I beg to move that this House approves the Legal Advice and Assistance (Financial Conditions) (No. 4) Regulations 1975. With the leave of the House I should like at the same time to deal with the Legal Aid (Financial Conditions) (No. 2) Regulations 1975, and also the two corresponding Scottish Regulations standing in the name of my noble friend Lord Kirkhill. They are in similar terms to the English ones, and my remarks apply equally to both.

These Regulations increase the income limits for legal aid advice and assistance. The background to the regulations is that when the income limits for legal aid were raised towards the end of 1973, with effect from 1st January 1974, the then Government announced that in future they would be reviewed annually to take account of increases in supplementary benefits which were themselves reviewed annually. This was a considerable improvement in the legal aid field because it meant that the income limits would not be eroded by inflation as would happen if they were reviewed only at irregular intervals, as had been the practice previously.

However, since that announcement inflation itself has resulted in supplementary benefits being increased more than once a year. The increases in the legal aid income limits last June reflected increases in supplementary benefit in the previous month, and the Regulations now before your Lordships follow increases in supplementary benefit which will come into effect on the 17th November as a result of the Supplementary Benefit (Determination of Requirements) (No. 2) Regulations 1975. These include a rise of just under 14 per cent., from £9.60 to £10.90, in the ordinary weekly rate for short-term supplementary benefit. The Regulations before the House make similar increases in the income limits for legal aid advice and assistance.

I now come to the actual provisions of the Regulations. The Legal Aid (Financial Conditions) (No. 2) Regulations 1975 raise from £1,580 to £1,790 the disposable income limit above which a person ceases to qualify for legal aid and from £500 to £570 the disposable income limit below which a person is eligible for legal aid without payment of a contribution. The disposable income is a person's net income after certain deductions have been made for various living expenses, such as rates, rent, dependants, income tax and so on.

The Legal Advice and Assistance (Financial Conditions) (No. 4) Regulations 1975 raise from £29 to £30 the disposable income limit above which a person is not entitled to legal advice and assistance. The increase is not as high as for legal aid, as the financial limits for advice and assistance are calculated on a slightly different basis from that for legal aid. These Regulations must be read in conjunction with a third set of Regulations, not before the House today since they are not subject to Affirmative Resolution, which come into force at the same time as the other Regulations. These raise from £15 to £16 the disposable income limit above which a person in receipt of legal advice and assistance is required to pay a contribution, and also make consequential amendments to the scale of contributions for advice and assistance.

I commend these increases to your Lordships. While they are by no means remarkable, they are important in keeping step with inflation following the principle of annual reviews, accepted in 1973. They must also be considered in the light of two important studies currently being carried out by my Office and others. The first is a general study into legal aid financial limits, which my Legal Aid Advisory Committee asked the Law Society and the Supplementary Benefits Commission to undertake. This is a complex subject, and it may be some time before suggestions are formulated, but I look forward to receiving the recommendations of my Advisory Committee in due course. The other study is one which I myself commissioned last year into the nature and extent of the need for legal services which is not being met at present. This study will also be dealing with financial priorities, and I hope to receive advice on it from my officials early next year. When I have been able carefully to consider the results of both studies, I shall be in a much better position to judge whether the current principles for reviewing the legal aid limits are the best that can be devised, and, indeed, whether there should be any radical changes in any or all of these financial conditions. I beg to move the Motion standing in my name.

Moved, That the Legal Advice and Assistance (Financial Conditions) (No. 4) Regulations 1975, laid before the House on 27th October, be approved. (The Lord Chancellor.)

3.22 p.m.

The Earl of MANSFIELD

My Lords, I am sure your Lordships will welcome both these Motions, and the other two to which the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has spoken, coming as they do from the other side of the Border. Anything that I say about them should not be taken as carping criticism, but really mainly as taking the opportunity to remind your Lordships as to the present state of legal aid and, indeed, legal advice and assistance in the financial sense, and possibly as an invitation to the Government to say what they are going to do in the future so far as increase of benefit is concerned.

My Lords, the 25th Legal Aid Annual Report shows, if nothing else, the appalling effects of inflation even on this part of our economy. For instance, if one looks at legal advice and assistance, which is the subject of the No. 4 Regulations, if I may so call them, in April 1973 the upper disposable income limit —that is to say, above which legal advice and assistance was not available—was £20. On 1st January 1974 it went up to £24.50 on 1st September 1974 it went to £28; on 1st June last it rose to £29, and now, indeed, the figure is going up again to £30, so that the criteria by which these reviews were made are becoming out of date.

My first objection, if it can be called an objection, is concerned with whether the Government consider that these increases are at all adequate. It is fair to say that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor's Committee and, indeed, the Law Society's Report, bear out that they do not. Furthermore, if one takes the position so far as legal aid is concerned with a similar illustration, the upper disposable income limit above which legal aid was not available was, in 1970, £950; in January 1974, £1,175; in September 1974. it had gone up to £1,380; 1st June 1975 fixed the upper limit at £1.580—and that, too, has gone up, as we have heard, to £1,790.

That may seem to be quite a lot of money, but the position is pointed out with considerable clarity in Appendix B of the second part of the Report which illustrates in a table the net incomes of persons entitled to legal aid either free or on payment of contribution as at 1st June 1975. So far as the single person is concerned, taking into account income from all sources after deduction of income tax, National Insurance contributions and rent, the maximum permitted free legal aid was £604 or £11.61p per week, and the minimum which makes the applicant ineligible for legal aid, was £1,685. Perhaps rather more starkly, if one takes the case of a single parent with two children aged 4 and 8 years, and an income which includes £1.50p a week family allowance, there the maximum 'permitted free legal aid is £919, or £17.67p per week; and the minimum which makes the applicant ineligible for legal aid goes up to £2,000, or £38.46p per week. These figures, which in a sense are rather technical, show that although the Government are doing what they contracted to do—and other Governments beforehand have sought to do—in my submission the time is fast coming when the whole of these legal aid limits and conditions should be reviewed. If we really are to allow people the benefit of the legal rights which they are entitled to claim. I would suggest these limits will have to be greatly increased.

My Lords, the other matter I would raise—and I hope it is not out of order to do so, because we are having what might be called a mini-debate on legal aid—concerns capital limits. The position, as I understand it, is that those limits were last raised in December 1972, and the limit above which legal aid may be refused is £1,200; the limit below which legal aid is available without a contribution from capital is £250. The disposable capital limit for the availability of legal advice and assistance is also £250. I have no doubt that all noble Lords will agree that these limits are much too low. To my mind, there really cannot be any excuse, since we are nearly three years in time from the period when they were last raised. In fact, this recommendation has been made each year since 1972. Even to keep step with inflation, to put such an applicant in the same position as he would have been in December 1972, according to the Report the limits would now need to be raised to £378 and £1,819 respectively.

My Lords, as I have said, this really is a matter which shows the evils of inflation. Nevertheless, the people who depend on legal aid for civil matters are those who in many ways are the least able to cope with inflation, and the least able to arrange their affairs so that they can enforce their rights without the help which this otherwise excellent scheme gives.

3.30 p.m.

Lord HALE

My Lords, I had intended to say only a couple of words on the second of the two Regulations, but the extension of the debate by the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack beyond the Tweed I find rather embarrassing, because I have not studied with care matters so far from Oldham. I think that the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, has made an important contribution, some of which I would have hoped to make. Another place has recently received a report on the processes of legislation and I have not yet been able to obtain a copy of this. I understand it deals rather sensibly with some of the very odd features of these two Regulations.

At first sight noble Lords might think they were non-identical twins, because they are inspired by the same Act, they are made on the same day, they are laid on the same day and they come into operation on the same day. I confess I started under that impression. But, No, under an Act passed last year I find we have now got at least six statutory Amendments. We are running a whole series of statutory Amendments under one section and a whole series of statutory Amendments under the other, and the reference in the No. 2 Act to the Legal Advice and Assistance (Financial Conditions) (No. 2) Regulations 1975 is nothing whatever to do with the Legal Aid (Financial Conditions) Regulations 1975. No doubt a Member of the House should have realised that at once.

I sometimes look back at my old profession. They are, I believe, prosperous; I believe they are very overworked. When I go to the Law Society's hall now I very rarely receive a smile. They are endeavouring to understand at one and the same time the whole of the Statutory Instruments, the whole of the EEC secondary legislation, as well as taking an interest in the statutory laws of this country. It is a very heavy burden.

The one point I had intended to raise (and I will not pursue it) was No. 4 of the No. 2 Regulations being debated today. I read that several times without understanding it. So I turned to the explanatory note and found that it does not mention it. I turned up the report of the Joint Committee and found that they have no observation to make. I therefore listened with the utmost care and attention to the learned and lucid statement from the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, and noted that this was the one question to which he referred. So far as I know, there is nothing sinister. I think it is regrettable that one should introduce into an Act passed last year a new system of computation, which is stated in terms not clearly intelligible to a Life Peer of 73 suffering from premature senile decay, and which I think would not easily be readily intelligible to quite a number of people and to busy solicitors.

Therefore, I intended to concentrate my remarks on the other Regulation No. 4, because there is an exceptionally clear explanation of precisely what it means in about two lines of 10 words: These Regulations increase the disposable income limit for the availability of legal advice and assistance from £29 a week to £30 a week. There is no question about that. I do not know why it needs a Statutory Instrument. Some 22,500 solicitors and 2,500 banisters will have to know about this in order to advise their clients, and law libraries will need to have them. It would be very indecorous of me not to thank the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, not for a step in the right direction but for a slight shuffle in the right direction. But I should like to add that clearly we are not advancing, in Napoleon's phrase, "à pas de charge".

3.35 p.m.

Lord SLATER

My Lords, not being a lawyer, I have listened with interest to my noble friend on the Woolsack. Reflecting upon the introduction of this measure of legal aid for the unfortunate people in the country who are in need of such aid because of their financial circumstances, I recall that during my Parliamentary career many people came to me, as they have come to other people of such standing, for advice on these matters. It was most pleasing to me to listen to the observations and comments made by my noble and learned friend who sits on the Woolsack, and also those of the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield. I sincerely hope that the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, will not forget the observations that he has made in regard to this measure and the recommendations that have come from the Government through my noble friend who sits on the Woolsack.

I reflect that many things have been introduced since we were children before the Second World War, and are costing this nation a tremendous amount of money when we need as much positive help as possible. I, like many others, should like to see a much greater increase, as tangible evidence to those unfortunate people who have to apply for this financial aid when they find themselves in dire circumstances. I sincerely hope and trust that the House will not forget the observations that have been passed on to us by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, and also those of the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield.

3.38 p.m.

The LORD CHANCELLOR

My Lords, I am grateful for the muted approval which has been given to these Statutory Instruments which I moved. Their purpose is to keep pace with the rate of inflation. That has been linked to the changes in supplementary benefit payments. Those changes are linked to the inflationary rate. I think that the proposals in these Regulations also faithfully keep pace with inflation. It is, of course, the great enemy that we as a community now face; it challenges every aspect of our lives, voluntary work, assistance to the needy in this way. Everything is under challenge and under threat as long as the inflation rate continues to rise.

Certainly I wish we could have said that we could pay more. This year £40 million is about the figure paid out of the public exchequer for legal aid, advice and assistance. It is a substantial sum, and at this time he would indeed be a very bold man who called for greater increases. At any rate, in this important field we are keeping the limits in line with the increase in inflation. On the capital limits, I am waiting for recommendations. In regard to the observations of the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, as I have said, an inquiry has been commissioned into the whole question of financial limits, and I have no doubt we shall be returning to this important problem in due course.

I am sorry that my noble friend has purported to find difficulty in understanding the Statutory Instruments. I would have hoped that the explanatory memoranda, at any rate, are self-explanatory. It is necessary to produce this flood of Statutory Instruments because the basis of the financial limits for legal aid and advice and assistance have to be set down. We tried to enable those limits to keep in touch with the inflationary changes. So what is being done, while it results in, I am afraid, an accumulation of Statutory Instrument, at any rate fulfils the duty the Government have to ensure that those needing legal advice and assistance do not suffer because of the inflationary position. Therefore, in the light of those explanations—I am grateful for the observations of my noble friend Lord Slater—I hope that the House will be disposed to approve the relevant Motion.

On Question, Motion agreed to.