§ Lord Lester of Herne Hillasked Her Majesty's Government:
To what extent the Community Legal Service will give assistance in advising and representing the alleged victims of unlawful discrimination in relation to proceedings under the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, the Race Relations Act 5WA 1976 and the Disability Discrimination Act 1995; and [HL595]
To what extent the Community Legal Service gives assistance to law centres and community action groups to enable them to advise and represent the alleged victims of unlawful discrimination in relation to proceedings under the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, the Race Relations Act 1976, and the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. [HL596]
§ The Lord Chancellor (Lord Irvine of Lairg)The Community Legal Service will be launched in April 2000. As part of the Government's legal aid reform programme, I intend to focus resources on priority areas, one of which will be advice on social welfare work, including employment rights. In addition, the Community Legal Service will bring in new providers such as not-for-profit advice agencies and law centres, which have particular expertise in these areas of law. Victims of unlawful discrimination will therefore have access to high-quality advice.
Publicly funded help will also be available for representation in court proceedings brought specifically under these Acts, subject to the standard tests of the applicant's means and the funding assessment. However, a large proportion of cases are brought in employment tribunals, for which public funding is not available for representation. The Government are currently reviewing the procedures of all tribunals to assess how they comply with our obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights and EU law. Once we have better control of the scheme through the legal aid reforms, it will be possible for us to consider extending representation to tribunals if a need for it is established.