Legal Aid: Cost (Hansard, 22 November 1994)

§ The Lord Chancellor (Lord Mackay of Clashfern)
My Lords, it is estimated that the cost of legal aid in the current financial year will amount to £1.33 billion compared with £1.21 billion last year, an increase of £120 million.

§ Lord Boyd-Carpenter
My Lords, I thank my noble and learned friend for that Answer. Are steps being taken to ensure that this large cost figure is reduced, that the practice of providing legal aid for wealthy men such 149 as Mr. Nadir, Mr. Hashim and Mr. Foxley is desisted from, and that legal aid is provided, if at all, only for those who are in need?

§ The Lord Chancellor
My Lords, I have taken, and am taking, a number of steps further to control the legal aid budget. They are in the shape of new systems of payment in relation in particular to legal aid. The important distinction must be made between criminal proceedings, in which the state prosecutes a person, and civil legal aid. As regards criminal legal aid, there are provisions which require the interests of justice to be satisfied in order that legal aid should be granted. There is no upper limit as regards criminal legal aid. An assessment is made by the courts of the amount that the person in question should pay because, in relation to crime, it may well be that even a person with comparatively large assets is not able adequately to meet the cost of some cases. As regards civil proceedings, there is of course an upper limit relating to means.
I must emphasise that the rules applied are the same for everyone. Those who may be regarded by some as apparently wealthy have applied to them exactly the same rules as currently apply to everyone else. It may be that ways of satisfying the rules require further examination. That will be done through a paper which, as I indicated on a previous occasion, I propose to lay before the public for consultation as soon as an adequate analysis of the problem is available to me.

§ Lord Renton
My Lords, perhaps I may ask a question which I have asked twice in previous Sessions. Can my noble and learned friend say to what extent the legal profession in civil cases is making the fullest possible use of opportunities for the conciliation and settlement of cases instead of bringing them to court?

§ The Lord Chancellor
My Lords, it is not easy to be certain about that. To a great extent such matters are conducted outside the courts. I believe that the possibility of conciliation, mediation or what is generally described under the heading of an alternative dispute resolution is fairly widely used. In particular, I commend the practice of the commercial court which expressly directs the attention of litigants to the opportunities available so that they may consider them before embarking on litigation.

§ Lord Irvine of Lairg
My Lords, does the noble and learned Lord feel confident that the rate of increase of legal aid expenditure is set to reduce as a result of the substantial cuts he has imposed in rates of pay for civil legal aid work under certificates granted after February this year? Furthermore, as current expenditure on legal aid is well within estimates, is the noble and learned Lord able to make a start on restoring the eligibility limits which, at the time the cuts were made, he indicated he desired to do as soon as circumstances permitted?

§ The Lord Chancellor
My Lords, as the figures I have given to my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter show, the rate of increase in the total amount paid for legal aid remains quite high. It is against that background that I must consider what I can do. I have 150 endeavoured to control the fees paid to the legal profession in relation to civil proceedings, but the cost of civil proceedings is still high. I have invited my noble and learned friend Lord Woolf to examine the underlying procedures in the hope that they too can be simplified so enabling the money which the taxpayer provides for legal aid to be used more widely for the benefit of those who need help.

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, will my noble and learned friend tell those of us who are not lawyers what proportion in aggregate of legal fees is derived from legal aid and what proportion is derived from people who are paying for their own defence or prosecution?

§ The Lord Chancellor
My Lords, it is extremely difficult for me to ascertain precisely how much is paid by other than the state. I have given the figures that the state pays. It is a substantial proportion of the total but I do not believe that I have sufficiently good information to base conclusions on the precise amount in aggregate paid for legal fees.