HL Deb 30 October 1979 vol 402 cc336-40

3.9 p.m.

The LORD CHANCELLOR rose to move, That the regulations laid before the House on 26th July 1979, be approved. The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, in rising to move the first of the two Motions in my name, may I speak to both simultaneously. The regulations increase the income limits both for legal aid in civil proceedings and for legal advice and assistance. It has become the practice in recent years for the financial limits to be increased annually in line with increases in supplementary benefits. This year the limits were increased considerably in April as part of a package of improvements to the legal aid scheme introduced by my predecessor. May I in parenthesis say that I did think that Lord Elwyn-Jones had achieved a very important victory inside the Government machine by improving those regulations then—a thing I had been wanting to see for a long time. He did, to some extent, recapture the ground which had gradually become eroded by the sea since the legal aid scheme was first introduced. The regulations ensure that the real value of the limits achieved in April is maintained.

The Legal Aid (Financial Conditions) (No. 2) Regulations increase the lower income limit, below which no contribution is payable, from £1,500 to £1,700 a year, and the upper income limit, above which legal aid is not available, from £3,600 to £4,075 a year. Both sets of figures relate to what is called "disposable income" which, as your Lordships will know by now, as we have to say it every year, is a notional figure arrived at after allowances are made for dependants and deductions are made for certain necessary expenses such as income tax, housing costs and the cost of travelling to work.

There are corresponding changes to the income limits for legal advice and assistance, the so-called "green form" scheme. The Legal Advice and Assistance (Financial Conditions) (No. 3) Regulations 1979 raise the upper income limit for legal advice and assistance from £75 to £85 a week. Another set of regulations—which are not subject to affirmative resolution—raise the lower disposable income limit from £35 to £40 a week and amend the scale of contributions payable for persons with incomes above that limit.

The allowances made for dependants in both schemes will also increase. These are fixed at one and a half times the corresponding supplementary benefit scale rates, and so, when the supplementary benefit rates increase on 12th November, the allowances for dependants for legal aid and legal advice and assistance will increase automatically.

These increases in the financial limits are intended to ensure that legal aid continues to be available to those who would otherwise be unable to enforce or defend their legal rights. It is estimated that legal aid is now available to at least 70 per cent. of families with children. In 1978–79, before the financial limits were increased in April, 152,000 certificates were issued for legal aid in civil proceedings. Over 400,000 claims for payment in respect of legal advice and assistance were received from solicitors. The net cost of civil legal aid and legal advice and assistance was over £33 million, excluding administration.

My policy is to ensure that legal aid should remain available—to quote the preamble to the first Legal Aid and Advice Act of 1949—to those of "small or moderate means", and, unless the level of the legal aid limits is maintained, the legal rights of many people will go by default.

I think that I should explain that in previous years the corresponding Scottish regulations have been debated at the same time as the English ones. Unfortunately, that has not been possible on this occasion, but I understand that the Secretary of State for Scotland will bring his regulations before Parliament in the near future. Corresponding regulations for Northern Ireland, made by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland under the negative resolution procedure, will come into force on the same day as those relating to England and Wales.

I should also explain that, in addition to the regulations I am now moving which require affirmative resolution, I have laid others subject to the negative procedure which raise the lower income limit and reduce contributions for legal advice and assistance. These come into operation at the same time—12th November—and require no separate comment. I beg to move.

Moved, That the Legal Aid (Financial Conditions) (No. 2) Regulations 1979, laid before the House on 26th July, 1979, be approved.—(The Lord Chancellor.)

Lord JANNER

My Lords, I should like to say on behalf of my profession that we are extremely obliged for the advances that are being made in this particular direction. The profession as a whole is most concerned that all those who cannot afford to litigate when they have a good cause should be enabled to do so. We feel very strongly that every individual in this country should have a full opportunity, irrespective of his financial situation, to place a reasonable case—about which he is usually advised by the profession itself—in the proper courts for a decision. In those circumstances, I personally am grateful to the noble and learned Lord as, I am sure, is everyone in my own particular profession.

Lord BOSTON of FAVERSHAM

My Lords, I should like to join my noble friend Lord Janner in thanking the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor for introducing these regulations. I do so also on behalf of my noble and learned friend Lord Elwyn-Jones, who is sorry that he is unable to be here for the introduction of these regulations, for the reasons which your Lordships have already heard. I would only add that it is of course vitally important that the financial limits mentioned by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor are revised so as to keep pace with inflation and are kept in line with increases in supplementary benefits. Therefore, from this Bench, I offer a welcome to the proposed regulations.

There is, as the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has indicated, just one respect in which these legal aid provisions do not quite parallel the supplementary benefits increases, and that is that, whereas the supplementary benefits provisions were updated to take account of inflation from last November, these legal aid provisions are updated only from last April. However, as the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has also most generously pointed out, there were the increases which were introduced last April. I am sure that we on these Benches are most grateful to him for the observation that he made about my noble and learned friend Lord Elwyn-Jones.

Furthermore, I think that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor is to be congratulated himself on having coaxed from a no doubt somewhat reluctant Treasury, some more money. Therefore, I would join him in commending these regulations to your Lordships.

The LORD CHANCELLOR

My Lords, first I should like to apologise for having, as it were, almost jumped the gun by putting the Question before noble Lords had spoken. It is very easy to make such mistakes and one apologises when one makes them.

I am grateful to both the noble Lord. Lord Janner, and the noble Lord, Lord Boston of Faversham, for what they have said. I do not think that I had to fight a terrible battle with my colleagues over these regulations. I think that they realised the importance and priority which they should receive.

What is, of course, a sad fact for lawyers is that, in a financial situation such as that from which we seem constantly to suffer, we cannot move ahead as fast as we would like. There are areas which the Legal Aid Advisory Committee is constantly urging us to move into and where I would like to move forward if I could. In that respect, I think that I am up against the financial situation. Moreover, of course, there are whole areas of litigation which are not covered at all—there is the area of tribunals and all sorts of matters that one would like to consider but that, in the present financial situation, is not possible. Also, and I say this frankly—I should not say it as Lord Chancellor but I do say it as a Member of the Government—one must recognise that in an age when one is cutting down and economising on essential social services, one must take one's own share on things which perhaps do not excite quite so much compassion but which are none the less important to very many people. I can only apologise for not having a better statement to make, but I am extremely grateful to both noble Lords for being so understanding about the matter.

On Question, Motion agreed to.