Law Centres: Funding and Salary Levels (Hansard, 29 June 1981)

§ Lord Gifford
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

§ The Lord Chancellor (Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone)
My Lords, the financial support provided by my department to these law centres is limited to the provision of a grant in aid towards total costs. The range of legal services provided, the staffing complements, and salary levels are matters to be determined by the independent local management committees, under whose control the centres operate.

§ Lord Gifford
My Lords, while I regret the brevity of that Answer, may I ask the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor these supplementary questions: First of all, will he generally confirm that the work of neighbourhood law centres, which has been praised by the Benson Commission, is all the more essential in these days of recession? Secondly, in relation to these two urban centres in Cardiff and Birmingham, will the noble and learned Lord confirm that they have been offered grant aid by his department on a level that is bound to mean, for example, that the salary for an experienced lawyer would be less than £6,000, and absurdly low? Finally, irrespective 2 of longer-term plans for law centres, does not the noble and learned Lord himself, as the main provider of grant aid, have a responsibility to ensure that the agencies which he funds are staffed by people who are remunerated at a decent level?

§ The Lord Chancellor
My Lords, may I apologise for the brevity of my original Answer; I had always thought that in answering Questions brevity was a virtue and not a vice. Now may I deal, perhaps with a little less brevity, with the three main supplementary questions asked by the noble Lord. He referred to my department as the main provider of grant aid to these centres. That is approximately the opposite of the truth. There are seven community law centres funded by my department; the two centres referred to in the Question are among those seven. Twenty-one centres are funded under the urban aid programme by the Department of the Environment as to 75 per cent. and by the local authorities concerned as to the remainder. There are six centres funded by local authorities alone, and three funded by charities and other sources. So I am not the main provider of grant aid in these respects.
The seven centres, of which those in question are two, were funded by the Lord Chancellor's department as a result of the very proper action by my noble and learned predecessor (whom I am glad to see present) as a rescue operation when entirely separate funding sources were suddenly removed. That I think will do as an instalment of a rather less brief answer.

§ Lord Elwyn-Jones
My Lords, would not the noble and learned Lord agree that the rescue operation in which I became engaged to save these two centres has resulted in gross underpayment of the lawyers acting there who are providing a most valuable service in areas of very great need? Could not at least steps be taken to see that they are paid salaries on the terms of the Schedule 11 award under the Employment Protection Act, as was done for North Kensington? Finally, may I ask the noble and learned Lord when the interdepartmental working party, which was set up after the report of the Royal Commission on Legal Services, is to report? The law centres up and down 3 the country are anxiously waiting for the outcome of its deliberations.

§ The Lord Chancellor
My Lords, as regards the last supplementary question of the noble and learned Lord, if he will put down a Question I will give him the best answer that I can. I am not in a position to give him an answer today because the Question now before the House relates solely to the two law centres referred to. With regard to the noble and learned Lord's earlier point, the allocation of funds provided between the seven centres has to be undertaken by the local management committee, as I indicated in my original Answer. The money that is available in the Lord Chancellor's department has been increased this year by about 6 per cent., but I cannot within the budget fund two particular centres except at the expense of the others. One must look at this problem as a coherent whole. These are certainly exceptional cases, and it is quite wrong to suppose that I could give an ad hoc grant for the increase of these salaries without damaging what was done to the other centres. I must say very firmly to the House that these are local services, comparable to the services elsewhere in the country which are funded either solely by local authorities or as to 25 per cent. by local authorities, and there is absolutely nothing to stop these two centres attracting funds either from a local or from a voluntary source.

§ Lord Brooks of Tremorfa
My Lords, could the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor tell the House how many representations he has received on behalf of the Adamsdown Community Law Centre?

§ The Lord Chancellor
Not without notice, my Lords, but these two law centres have made a disproportionately large number of representations to a large number of Members of Parliament, all of whom have made representations in the same terms and have been replied to in identical terms.

§ Lord Gifford
My Lords, would not the noble and learned Lord accept that the reason for that is that their staffs are being paid ridiculously low wages; and, as the main provider for those centres, is he not responsible for that state of affairs?

§ The Lord Chancellor
My Lords, the answer to the last part of that supplementary question is, no. The local management committees are responsible and must tailor their coats to fit their cloth. As I say, I can only give particular aid out of a relatively restricted fund, which has been increased this year by approximately 6 per cent., and I can only give that particular aid to particular centres at the expense of the others. There is absolutely no reason why these centres should not seek local aid or voluntary aid.

§ Lord Elwyn-Jones
My Lords, if the noble and learned Lord discovers that it is the case, as I am told it is, that efforts by these centres to receive funds from other sources (either through charitable or local authority sources, or through any other sources) have failed, and that if there is no improvement in salaries 4 the management committees are now faced with the closure of these centres—and I know how sympathetic he is personally to the continuance of their existence—will he look at the problem again?

§ The Lord Chancellor
Clearly, I will, my Lords, but I can only do it within certain limits. If these centres fail to get the same local support from the local authorities or other sources as the great majority of law centres, one cannot altogether blame the Lord Chancellor's department for not giving them a special advance over the others. The noble and learned Lord is perfectly right in saying that I am sympathetic to these cases, but I have to work under the same constraints as other departments, and in this particular case other centres do get support from local authorities.

§ Lord Wigoder
My Lords, would the noble and learned Lord agree that irrespective of where the blame might lie the salary levels at present being paid are obviously inadequate to ensure a proper service?

§ The Lord Chancellor
My Lords, that may raise a question as to how far the service should depend on salary levels as such. As the noble Lord will probably be aware, the services of all these centres—and in that I include I think all those that I have mentioned, including the local authority centres, the urban scheme centres and the privately-funded ones—are in fact partly funded out of payments under the legal aid and legal advice schemes. It is not solely a question of salary.

§ The Lord President of the Council (Lord Soames)
My Lords, I suggest that we now move on to the next Question.