Lord McNally at All-Party Group on Legal Aid[/caption]

Outspoken comments about the cost of defence advocates by the Justice Secretary Chris Grayling have been raised by LAG with justice minister Lord McNally. He said his boss 'liked to pop balloons' to get attention and added: 'What Chris is trying to do is to provoke, by perhaps using flowery language, a debate.' He agreed that the state could not insist on a 'Rolls Royce service' for itself as prosecutor but deny this to the defence, but argued that a discussion was needed on how best to spend the legal aid budget. Lord McNally, who has responsibility for legal aid at the Ministry of Justice, was speaking at the All-Party Group on Legal Aid on Tuesday (22 January).

 

At the meeting, which was held in the House of Commons and attended by politicians, practitioners and others concerned about legal aid policy, Richard Miller from the Law Society said that while fees for higher court criminal work 'must always be at a sufficient level to ensure good quality advocacy, there was a strong case for the top end of fees to be looked at'. In response, Lord McNally said that the legal profession is 'in the process of considerable change' with the introduction of new business structures and that 'those who survive will be the ones able to adapt'; the new more 'competitive business structures could lead to savings'.

 

Richard Miller raised the issue of representation in complex benefits cases with the minister, arguing that some mechanism was needed, especially for people who are seriously ill or with long term disabilities, to obtain representation in their cases. He suggested that if the chairperson of a tribunal requested the presence of a representative from the Department for Work and Pensions this should trigger legal aid funding for the claimant. Lord McNally said he would take the idea back to the Ministry of Justice for consideration.

 

A number of speakers, including Deborah McIlveen (Women’s Aid) and Christina Blacklaws (The Co-operative Legal Services) raised concerns about the criteria for victims of domestic violence to qualify for legal aid. In response Lord McNally said that the government had moved a long way to meet those concerns, including adopting the Association of Chief Police Officers' new definition of domestic violence: 'We do not want women domestic violence victims to have to jump through too many hoops to ... qualify for legal aid.'

 

However, officials from the Ministry of Justice were evasive when asked to say when the guidance on qualifying for legal aid in domestic violence cases would be issued. They would not give a date, only responding that it would be 'before the legislation is implemented'. This prompted Lord McNally to remark that in parliamentary terms this was known as a 'bikini answer - very small but covering all the interesting bits'. Perhaps not an appropriate joke in the circumstances, but an illustration of the slightly jocular and conciliatory tone, aside from the remarks on criminal advocacy fees, that Lord McNally adopted throughout the meeting.

 

Towards the end of the meeting, Matthew Smerden from The Baring Foundation observed that the cuts in legal aid were likely to create more knock-on costs to other parts of the state. He asked Lord McNally whether there was a need for a national fund, bringing together contributions from government departments to create a social welfare law fund. The minister responded by admitting that government tends to 'work in silos' and that 'you are on your own' in finding cuts within a department as other departments are not prepared to look at the wider costs of cuts. With a rueful smile, he also said: 'We Liberal Democrats are on the look out for good ideas for our manifesto.'