§ Mr. BurnettTo ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what representations he has received from the Law Society on its proposals for a Contingency Legal Aid Fund, and what assessment he has made of the options proposed for setting up such a fund. [25871]
§ Mr. HoonThe President of the Law Society wrote to me on 16 December 1997 enclosing a paper entitled "A proposal by the Law Society to link legal aid and conditional fees". I am considering the proposal and I am due to meet the President shortly to discuss it further. No final decisions will be taken about this, or any other representations, until the consultation paper has been issued and all the responses received.
§ Mr. BurnettTo ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department if he will make a statement on his Department's policy towards the funding of Legal Aid Board franchises, with particular reference to Citizens Advice Bureaux. [25869]
§ Mr. HoonThe Legal Aid Board is piloting contracts for advice and assistance services provided by both solicitors and not-for-profit agencies, including Citizens Advice Bureaux. These contracts allow contract-holders meeting the franchise quality standard to provide advice, assistance and some limited representation. The pilot began in 1994.
On 14 January the Lord Chancellor asked the Legal Aid Board to construct an implementation plan to achieve the objective of delivering all advice and assistance through fixed-price contracts with quality-assured suppliers by the end of 1999. These contracts will include contracts with the not-for-profit advice sector, of which the Citizens Advice Bureaux form a part, in an expansion of the original pilot.
22 Citizens Advice Bureaux participated in the first phase of the pilot with contracts in 1996–97 to the value of £1,722,000 out of a total budget of £3 million.
222WApproximately 200 organisations, including more than 70 Citizen Advice Bureaux, are likely to be offered contracts in 1998–99. The Board has been allocated up to £14 million within its PES allocation for legal aid to support these contracts.
§ Mr. BurnettTo ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what representations he has received with regard to the future funding of those disbursements and up-front costs in civil cases which at present receive legal aid for those purposes; and if he will make a statement. [25870]
§ Mr. HoonI have received many representations on our plans for reform of legal aid which refer to the problems of funding disbursements and up-front costs. The wide consultation we are undertaking is partly aimed at looking at ways of meeting these costs, either through lawyers funding these as a business cost, or by lawyers sharing the risk with insurers, banks or other funders. It may be that in certain types of case public funds may be necessary where there is no alternative.
§ Mr. BurnettTo ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department when he plans to introduce a merits test on legally aided civil cases of 75 per cent. [25868]
§ Mr. HoonWe intend to introduce a flexible legal aid merits test that can take account of the priority and importance of different types of case. Changing the merits test will require primary legislation. We intend to bring forward a Bill that will fundamentally reform the legal aid scheme, as soon as Parliamentary time allows.