Legal Aid Reform
The next item of business is a debate on motion S2M-3012, in the name of Cathy Jamieson, on legal aid reform.
I am pleased to open the debate. I hope that the business managers have persuaded members to speak in it, because the issue matters to the people of Scotland. Good-quality legal advice and representation that are paid for where appropriate by the public purse are essential gateways to justice for all Scotland's people. They protect individuals and families; they underpin public confidence, not least through the sense of security that comes from knowing that such services are available should we need them; and they benefit us all by helping people to reach an early resolution to legal problems.
Members have heard me mention before the Executive's commitment to a safer, stronger Scotland. We are embarked on the most wide-ranging reform of our justice system in a generation. Our reforms support victims and witnesses and recognise their rights and needs within a more effective and efficient justice system. That system protects people and their communities, tackles antisocial behaviour, deals with youth offending, reduces re-offending and challenges offenders to return to law-abiding lifestyles.
Does the minister accept that, according to a Scottish Women's Aid survey of the legal profession, the present legal aid system severely restricts access to the Protection from Abuse (Scotland) Act 2001—which gives protection from abusers through interdicts with powers of arrest—either because of the contribution that women have to make or because of the block fee that is paid to solicitors? Will the proposed reforms alleviate that problem?
I will lay out what some of the reforms will do during my speech. I am aware of the view that Scottish Women's Aid has taken and that it has been in contact with solicitors and MSPs to argue its case strongly. I want to consider the issue during the consultation on our review. We would be happy to discuss the matter either with Maureen Macmillan or with Scottish Women's Aid during the consultation process. One issue that is canvassed in the consultation paper is the possibility that the Scottish Legal Aid Board could employ solicitors to undertake some of the family and other civil legal aid work to which Maureen Macmillan refers. I want to consider that carefully.
It is important that as we reform our justice system to meet people's needs we must also look closely at how we ensure access to justice. How do we provide the right advice and representation at the right time for people who face legal problems? A publicly funded service with access to justice at its core is a basic building block for a reformed justice system.
"Advice for All", the consultation paper that we launched last week, lays out our proposals on the way forward on legal advice paid for by public funds. Today, Parliament has an early opportunity to debate those proposals, raise issues and help to shape the way forward.
I regret that I cannot stay for the debate, but I want to ask the minister an important question about justice. Many small businesses find themselves in great difficulty with respect to defending themselves in certain situations. Under such circumstances the individual has no right to legal aid. Would it be possible for the minister, somewhere along the line, to find a means of considering the rights of small businesses?
I have had representations made to me on that issue at various stages. Perhaps we can consider it in more detail during the consultation. We could perhaps consider some of the real-life examples with which, no doubt, Mr Gallie could supply me from people who have contacted him, because that would be helpful.
Will the minister give way?
No. I want to make progress.
Our system of legal aid and advice and the provision of other advice by lawyers and other professionals on such matters as housing, employment and debt has many positive features, but those systems are far from perfect. We are all aware of the difficulties that arise when people with a deserving case are unable to pursue it because their income is just over the eligibility limit for legal aid. I am sure that other members will have heard such stories at their surgeries and in their case work—I hear about them from members subsequently.
We are all aware of the frustration that ordinary, hardworking people feel about cases in which those who face criminal charges have their cases subsidised, even when they are apparently well able to afford the costs. On the one hand is the situation that Mr Gallie describes and, on the other hand, is the fact that the public perhaps feel that others are subsidised.
I think that about three members want me to give way, but I want to move on because I want to try to accommodate some of the interventions—
Indeed, minister, but I can compensate you for interventions today if you are willing to take them.
That is extremely helpful. In that case, I will take an intervention from Mr Swinney, because he was first.
That is very gracious of the minister.
Before Mr Gallie's intervention the minister mentioned access to legal services. Does she accept that a particular component of access in rural areas is that, although a service might be funded by legal aid, issues of geography make it difficult for people to get access to a local legal practice?
That is important. When I come to discuss our proposals in more detail I am sure that Mr Swinney will recognise that they cover the areas that we need to consider. We have to consider the dilemmas that we will face in future and how best we get to the point that, wherever someone is in Scotland, they can get advice when they need it—in the right place and at the right time.
The information that we have so far indicates that two problems come up time and again. First, we lack a central direction for the provision of publicly funded legal advice, information and representation. Secondly, we lack a clear mechanism to relate the supply of services to the assessment of need: we are not able to ensure that the right advice is available to the right people at the right time. We must address those shortcomings.
Our vision is fairly straightforward: we must provide better access to advice and information for those who need it, when they need it, and, in response to Mr Swinney's point, where they need it. To do that we have to consider how that help and advice are planned and delivered. That will take time and there is no simple solution. I do not believe that simply putting in more and more funding is the answer. I see that Kenny MacAskilll is nodding; I hope to hear more from him on that when he makes his speech.
We clearly need to build a flexible, responsive and fair system that includes advice and assistance from a range of providers in the public, private and voluntary sectors. The system must be well planned and co-ordinated if it is to deliver what people need. Currently, no one body in Scotland has the powers and remit to achieve that or to develop and research the need for legal and other advice. In the longer term, we think that a new national body is required to fulfil such a role.
However, we know that much can be done now. We believe that the Scottish Legal Aid Board can develop its role in securing the appropriate provision and advice when and where it is needed. Under our proposals, the Scottish Legal Aid Board would be able directly to fund solicitors and non-solicitors who provide civil legal advice and to extend the direct employment of solicitors, including those in the Public Defence Solicitors Office.
We must ensure that best value is provided for public money and that effectiveness and efficiency are pursued with equal vigour—no member would disagree with that. I believe that we have achieved the right balance in our proposals. In order to provide value when public funds are used, we intend to ensure that the ability to pay remains a factor in an individual's eligibility for publicly funded legal assistance.
On financial eligibility, will reform take into account pension credit, which is a new, means-tested benefit for over-60s and is not disregarded for civil legal aid? The equivalent means-tested benefit for people who are under 60—income support—is disregarded. Many people who are over 60 will therefore be left at a disadvantage with legal costs.
We need to consider such matters further. I mentioned difficulties that relate to people who are perhaps just above the limit and who find themselves receiving no assistance at all. It is also important to recognise that people can often access appropriate advice differently from the way in which they currently seek that advice.
I emphasise that we have no plans to cap the legal aid fund with a view to saving money—that should be clear and on the table at this point. We believe that the individual's circumstances and the interests of justice are the most important considerations in the application of the legal aid fund, but that that fund must be managed efficiently to ensure best value for money.
Crofters' access to the Scottish Land Court is a small part of the minister's work, but it is important for people who are often on the margin. Has the minister surveyed access to the Scottish Land Court, as getting justice on matters that relate to appeals to it is expensive? That matter needs special attention and I hope that the minister will confirm that special attention will be given to it.
I hope that Mr Gibson will participate in the consultation process—I am sure that he will on behalf of his constituents—and will make his points in the same detail that I suggested to Mr Gallie that he should, so that we can consider them.
It is important to recognise that there has been a substantial increase in the criminal legal assistance bill—a rise of 28 per cent in four years cannot and should not be ignored. Measures such as allowing the Scottish Legal Aid Board to grant legal aid in solemn criminal cases will allow better control over the application of funds. The proposals will also ensure that changes in the financial circumstances of the accused are taken into account, which means that people whose income or assets increase for whatever reason could have their support reduced or withdrawn completely if they are no longer eligible. We are also consulting on the principle of criminal legal aid contributions for those who can afford to pay towards the cost of their case. The measures that we propose are aimed at making the system fairer and more transparent.
New and innovative approaches have already been taken in providing access to justice. In-court advice services have been piloted in Scotland and evaluation is under way of the direct employment of solicitors by the Scottish Legal Aid Board to address specific needs in criminal cases. The legal profession and other, non-legally qualified advisers in Scotland provide good-quality advice in civil cases. That is a key strength of the Scottish system and I commend the valuable work that a wide range of local and voluntary providers already carry out.
Providers of legal advice in Scotland are working all the time to provide better access to advice and to ensure that the quality of provision is high. We are working with the Scottish Legal Aid Board to develop an overarching quality framework for advice in Scotland, so that people can be confident in the quality of the advice that they receive. In recent months, the legal profession has led the way in quality assurance, especially through the development of peer review, and there is much more to come on that.
Recent developments on homelessness, housing and money advice show the important role that the right advice can play in supporting people to find routes out of poverty. That is, of course, very much in line with our general approach to social inclusion and to closing the opportunity gap.
Concerns have been expressed about access to advice on civil issues. In particular, we have heard that people on modest incomes are not getting the access to justice that they need because of a fear of the open-ended financial risk of instructing a solicitor privately. Those who are on lower incomes are eligible for legal aid, but those who are just above the eligibility levels can be excluded from access. We have set out proposals to address that while ensuring the efficient use of public funds.
I believe that our package of proposals for better access, modernisation and better value for public funds is key to the future of publicly funded legal assistance. Many of the proposals—though by no means all of them—are technical, but all are inspired by the need to revitalise our systems and to improve the quality of access to advice for Scotland's people. I hope that we can look at the provisions in more detail this afternoon; that the debate will contribute towards our thinking as we proceed; and that the Parliament will be able to support the motion.
I move,
That the Parliament recognises the crucial role which publicly funded legal aid, advice and information has in guiding individuals towards resolution of legal problems; welcomes the Scottish Executive's consultation on improving the effectiveness and efficiency of publicly funded legal assistance, and supports the Executive's determination to continue to work in partnership with the legal profession and the public and voluntary sectors to develop a system that effectively supports those who require it.
I accept a great deal of what the minister said. The Scottish National Party welcomes the debate and the consultation, which is long overdue. We accept that immediate action is required because the system is fragmenting. The purpose of our amendment is to draw the attention not just of the Executive but of the Parliament to the fact that we require not simply a short-term fix but a long-term solution.
We must bear in mind the fact that the field is complicated. As the minister said, there is no simple solution and it is not a matter of just pouring in more funds. The conflicting pressures on health, transport and the economy mean that that is not an option. We need to consider not just the service that we offer—which we must improve—and by whom it is offered, but how that service is provided. We must consider the structures that should be put in place, as they fundamentally affect the service and its consequent cost. That is where we are coming from.
We appreciate that the consultation is necessary to ensure that we get the current system—albeit that it is struggling—up and working, and we appreciate that the Executive may not feel capable of making a commitment today to establish a commission. However, we ask the Executive to recognise the spirit in which we lodged the amendment and the points that we will make in the debate. At some stage, rather than simply trying to improve the leaking bucket, we should consider recreating the entire system. We are in the 21st century, but our legal aid system is from the 1960s and 1970s. The problem is its structure, which is what we must change.
We will support the Executive consultation and its desire to improve the situation that we face; however, we must fundamentally change the system, which is clearly struggling. From advice centres to the legal profession, there is a significant problem. Advice centres have to cope with a plethora of matters that are coming before them because of the changes in society. They are having difficulties with funding and with requests from a population that is much more conscious of its rights.
The legal profession has seen legal aid rates diminish and is now voting with its feet. Simply increasing the legal aid rate is probably not going to work. Even if we increased the legal aid rate substantially, increased student debt and the fact that the legal profession is now a much wider-ranging profession that offers opportunities in information technology, construction and other matters, mean that young law school graduates no longer want to work for legal aid firms. Even a substantial increase in legal aid rates will not change what has happened in the profession. We might require to consider paying lawyers a lot more handsomely to work in a narrower field of activity. We might have to recognise that other areas will be better dealt with by different structures, whether they be voluntary or public sector agencies. I do not think, however, that we can change what has gone on in the Executive.
Why has it happened? It is not a matter of apportioning blame; it is about recognising that the system has changed. The criminal legal aid system was created in the 1960s and the civil legal aid system was created in the 1970s, but the world as we know it is much more complicated. It has moved on and there has been a change in society, the economy and people's consciousness of their rights. That has to be considered.
I can give some examples. Michael Clancy of the Law Society of Scotland made the point to me that when criminal legal aid came in, the criminal law of Scotland could be contained within one book. Now there is more than one book for road traffic regulations. We have created new sanctions for technology and telecommunications crime and a plethora of other matters. We needed to do that and, whether it was the Scottish Parliament or Westminster, we were correct to bring in such legislation. It has, however, caused problems that we must address. The system is struggling to cope with those changes.
Our civil society has changed. Since the late 1960s and the early 1970s, we have become the property-owning democracy. People own their houses and have disputes with their neighbours that were previously regulated by councils or housing associations. People now also leave legacies that cause arguments and difficulties. Our society is much more consumer-orientated; people have more possessions than ever and they want to be able to litigate or act to protect them. None of those matters was considered in the beginning, so it is not a matter of apportioning blame, but of recognising that the ground under our feet has shifted and the society in which we live has changed, and the legal aid system cannot cope unless we review it fundamentally.
New issues have arisen that we must provide for, such as immigration and asylum, and there has been recognition of the needs and wants of those who suffer from mental health problems. Such issues were not anticipated back in the 1960s, but they are a drain upon resources and funding and we must change the system and review the structures, not just try to manage a system that is not operating.
What do we do? We must conduct a root-and-branch review rather than the piecemeal reform that is being proposed, although that is welcome. At some stage, and on a cross-party basis through a commission, we require to work out what sort of structure we need, and who will deal with what in this complicated society. That should be done by a commission because it has to be non-partisan. We have done it before on other fundamental matters—with Kilbrandon and more recently with Cubie, Sutherland and Arbuthnott. When the issue is not party political, we should ask the great and the good of our society to consider anew where we are going.
What will we ask the commission to consider? The current position is that someone may litigate because their car has been shunted by another and they sue for £450. Do we really have to pay a sheriff £119,000 per year, plus pension, to arbitrate on whether the minister, for example, should have signalled, or whether I was going too fast? A fundamental point of law has to go before a sheriff, but should public resources be used when it is a simple matter of fact?
It is not just about the rate at which legal aid will be payable. Should such a matter be put before the sheriff court at all? Should we be replicating systems that are used elsewhere that use evening courts, for example, or an investigatory magistrate procedure whereby legal aid is not available and lawyers are excluded. The procedure is one where the magistrate asks questions such as, "What were you doing, minister?" and, "What speed were you going at, Mr MacAskill?" and we would have to bring witnesses.
We also have to consider other aspects of civil litigation. The minister pointed out that people are rightly bemused when a husband who batters his wife gets legal aid with no contribution, but the wife who has been battered and is living on credit and scraping to keep the family together has to pay a substantial contribution. That is not justice. It is difficult to find a solution, but our amendment makes it clear that the interests of justice are paramount and I believe that our society wants us to review such injustice.
We have to ask whether the new matters that have arisen, such as questions over immigration, mental health and consumer issues, might not be better dealt with by trading standards officers, advice agencies and immigration advisory services. As I suggested at the outset, we should pay lawyers very well for the narrow fields of law in which they should be expected to operate, but we need to provide other sources that can deal with other matters in other ways. Instead of using a system that is croaking and creaking, we should consider changing the whole structure.
Our approach recognises that there is no simple solution and that we need to make difficult choices. As my friend John Swinney said, it is probable that what is capable of being delivered in urban Scotland will not necessarily be available in rural Scotland, so we might need to deal with some aspects in different ways in different circumstances. However, the fundamental point is that we cannot go on as we are.
We support the minister on the need for a consultation to ensure that we get immediate action to review the current situation, which is failing. However, as the Parliament for the people of Scotland in the 21st century, we need to review not just the services that are provided but the whole basis upon which those are predicated. We need a review that starts with a blank sheet of paper and brings in people to work out how we will operate for the next 50 years.
I move amendment S2M-3012.1, to leave out from "welcomes" to end and insert:
"notes with concern current difficulties in the funding, staffing and resourcing of a variety of legal services through a multiplicity of agencies, professions and services; believes that the provision of legal and advice services requires a fundamental review in order for it to meet the new challenges and needs of the 21st century, and calls for a commission to be established with a wide remit, predicated on the principle that access to justice for all is paramount, to consider and advise on the best method of delivering such access and the best use of available resources within the judiciary, legal profession and the public and voluntary sectors."
I apologise to the Minister for Justice for arriving after the commencement of her speech, but I was at a meeting with my Justice 2 Committee clerk. I should also declare an interest as an enrolled solicitor in Scotland.
Public funding of legal services is not, I admit, a subject that is likely to have people on the edges of their seats, but it is vital for three reasons. First, it is right that people who need advice to ensure that justice is done are able to get that advice. Secondly, it is necessary to ensure that a reasonable scheme operates to assist in funding procurement of that advice for individuals who have little or no means with which to pay for it. Thirdly, without such a scheme, the main providers of that advice—lawyers—will wither on the vine and the quality of the service is likely to deteriorate, which would lead to the shrinking of Scotland's legal profession. The losers would be the very people who need the advice and assisted funding in the first place.
I will deal first with that last point. I am aware that emerging evidence suggests that the number of solicitors who are willing to undertake criminal and civil legal aid work is declining; already, there are indications that people are unable to access justice and advice when they need to do so. Alarmingly, clear evidence suggests that law graduates are increasingly opting not to do that type of work. Indeed, that view was declared to me during a recent visit to a university.
I welcome the Executive's motion. My party will support the motion even though it is perhaps a little bit premature, given that the consultation was launched only on 17 June. I believe that the issue requires broad discussion and debate, so it will be instructive to read the responses to the consultation.
I am aware that a report on legal aid was published by the Justice 1 Committee in 2001 and that the then Minister for Justice announced a strategic review of the matter on 24 October 2003. The Justice 1 Committee report floated some useful ideas that merit attention. I shall return to those in more detail in a moment.
Legal aid and legal advice and assistance cost a lot of money—approximately £150 million per annum. Some people will find it tempting to approach the debate from the simple standpoint that lawyers get far too much money, whereas others—not surprisingly, they will predominantly be lawyers—will say that lawyers find that legal aid work is not worth doing. Such simplistic approaches lead to the equally simplistic and misguided conclusions that we should either cut the money or provide more money on the basis of current structures. I disagree with both of those conclusions. I was interested to hear the minister's comments on that issue in her speech.
We need to analyse radically not only how we provide advice and assistance and representation in court, but whom we ask to provide them. Mr MacAskill made a similar point, but I do not support his idea to establish a commission, because that would result in unnecessary delay and possible expense. I actually believe that effective change can be made on the back of the consultation and that such change could be made quickly.
Most lawyers would agree that the initial guidance and advice that many people seek in respect of everyday problems can probably be conveniently and competently provided by a range of organisations, such as citizens advice bureaux, law centres, certain local government advisory facilities and, indeed, organisations such as Shelter. It may be more sensible to use such sources of advice than to expect individuals to seek out solicitors, fill up legal advice and assistance forms and enter into the now necessary protocols for someone to become a client of a solicitor.
Mr MacAskill is correct to say that such sources need to be resourced. It must be recognised that those advisory sources, although they are in many respects excellent, have limitations. If it is clear that the individual has a problem that might have significant personal or financial implications, legal advice may be necessary, and the sooner it is obtained the better. It seems to me that, if we can clear our minds about what may be appropriate for that stratum of general provision of advice, which is sought and required throughout Scotland, we may be able to leave solicitors to concentrate on clients for whom specific legal advice is required. It is certainly worth examining the current structures that govern funding of such advice.
As I said at the beginning of my speech, it is not in the interests of the public or of justice as a whole if solicitors are walking away from legal aid practice. It is also not in the interests of the legal profession if good court lawyers have no interest in staying in that area of practice. I know that it is popular to disparage and denigrate lawyers, but the great majority of lawyers do a good job and bring much comfort to clients. In my opinion, the Justice 1 Committee's report was on the right lines in suggesting that payments under the legal aid and legal advice and assistance schemes should be linked to introduction of a quality assurance scheme. I support that, as I support peer review.
Lawyers are no different from any other group of workers. When they are young, they are inexperienced, and they need to acquire experience. When they have acquired that experience, they are a valuable source of advice to clients and of education to the legal profession. The best example that a young lawyer can have in the profession is an older, more experienced and wiser colleague. It seems to me—these are my personal suggestions for consideration—that we need to move on to a system in which the level of payment depends on the seniority and accredited expertise of practitioners. To give a purely illustrative example, the first level might be for solicitors with five years' experience or less, the next for five to 10 years' experience and the next for perhaps 10 to 20 years' experience. That could be conjoined with higher payment for accredited expertise in specific areas of practice, such as medical negligence cases.
I am interested in what Annabel Goldie is saying, but does she accept that there is a substantial difference between having 20 years' experience once and having one year's experience 20 times? Two lawyers may have been in the business for 20 years, but with quite different results.
I am saying that, with their general level of workload and experience, most young lawyers will spend five years getting a grasp of general practice and experience and that, after that, they will become more useful practitioners. I was careful to say that that facility could be conjoined with accredited expertise. If a practitioner specialises and qualifies in a certain area of work, I think that that practitioner would want accreditation, which could be acknowledged in any consideration of a legal aid formula.
My suggestion would mean that, from the earliest stage, a client had the option of seeking general or more specialised advice. I would have thought that that could only be helpful to the process of a case and to the Scottish Legal Aid Board having confidence in the suitability of the practitioner to handle the case. That approach may be particularly relevant at the legal advice and assistance stage. We tend to get hung up on legal aid and funding of cases in court, but if an expert experienced solicitor advises a client early, the advice may be that there is no case, so the matter will never proceed to court. The advice might also be, "There is a case, and with my expertise I can negotiate a settlement." Such a settlement could be successfully effected without a case going to court, which would mean that the legal aid fund was not required or accessed to fund litigation.
I see no reason why that general approach could not work equally well for civil and criminal cases. What is becoming unsustainable is a set payment for work, regardless of whether a solicitor is 23 or 43 and regardless of whether a solicitor has no specific expertise or professionally acknowledged and accredited expertise. That system is no longer serving the public interest or the public purse, and it is no longer serving a soundly based, roundly qualified legal profession.
Change can be made, and I think that it can be made without another national body being set up. In that connection, I sound a cautionary note. I am a little apprehensive about any proposal to introduce bureaucracies. All the components exist to effect and deliver change, provided that we are able to give political leadership on what form that change should take. I urge the Executive to be ambitious and to have a vision for a soundly structured and well-qualified legal profession in Scotland; if it does not, it will be the public rather than lawyers who are failed.
I await advice and assistance on the election of our new party leader. I have not received information on that, but I trust that there is not a recount. Having been through two recounts in my constituency, I hope for the sake of both candidates that there will not be one on this occasion.
I apologise for the fact that I will not be in the chamber to catch all the winding-up speeches, although I will be here as much as I can be.
This is my third speech on justice in recent weeks in which I have argued that, for Liberal Democrats, our justice system needs to be efficient, effective and transparent. Inefficiency is one of the biggest contributors to communities and individuals giving up on the justice system. That can take the form of a crime not being solved; a criminal going free as a result of bureaucratic or legalistic muddles; delays; or the handing out of inadequate or ridiculously short sentences, which might be the result of an offender playing the system or of the system being ineffective because the statutory bodies—the police, the prisons or social work departments—have not been able to reform individuals or to support individuals to reform themselves.
The system needs to be more transparent, but one of my fears is that without a more radical approach than that which the Executive has said it wishes to adopt, it will not be as transparent as we would like it to be. As well as being about justice being seen to be done in a community, transparency is about justice being accessible. All members will have noted the growth that has taken place over recent years in one aspect of the legal system; that is, the more unscrupulous and aggressively marketed online or call-centre lawyers who make no-win, no-fee offers or who provide ambulance chaser-type legal services. Although their marketing is very easy to understand for many of their users, they do not have the approach to the provision of advice on the legal system that Annabel Goldie spoke about in her speech. It is important that individuals receive proper high-quality advice.
Soon after I became the justice spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, I said that, as someone who had no legal background, I was not necessarily at a disadvantage in speaking about justice. I am confirmed in my view that it is simply not acceptable that parts of our justice system seem almost to be designed to be exclusive, elite and inaccessible. I confess that that is a provocative generalisation because there are some fantastically dedicated individuals in the legal system who work tirelessly for people who are not fortunate enough to be able to afford the best lawyers. A basic tenet of provision of legal aid is that the person who cannot afford one of the best lawyers can be represented by just such a lawyer.
My assertion was also a generalisation in the sense that some of the more modern reforms to our justice and protection system in Scotland, such as the establishment of the children's hearings system, are good examples of where we have got it right. However, the archaic language and procedures that are associated with much of the legal system in Scotland are examples of where we continue to get it wrong. It is interesting to note that legal aid was introduced at roughly the same time as the children's hearings system. In both cases, we have the right principles and in both cases the Executive is committed to reform and to ensuring that the systems are fit for purpose in the 21st century.
Many individuals want to access advice at times of crisis and stress in their lives, but complex language and jargon can compound people's confusion about accessing the system. I will make another generalisation: many people who are in business—as we heard Mr Gallie say—and in other walks of life think that getting legal advice involves hiring at great expense a lawyer who confirms to them what their gut reaction was in the first place. They feel that it is only because the lawyer can write a letter in the right language that their opinion becomes a legal view. In saying that, I mean no offence—or perhaps not a huge amount of offence—to the lawyers in the chamber. We see that happening in planning disputes, employment cases and even small claims cases. There is now a website that allows members of the public to translate the jargon, terminology and procedures: the relevant page of the Victims of Crime in Scotland website is headed "Jargon Buster".
Many MSPs' hearts go out to their constituents when they are approached about a legal issue and have to inform the constituent to seek independent legal advice. Sometimes that opens up a minefield for constituents. They may encounter difficulties not only in the course ahead of them, but even in accessing good advice in the first place.
I hope that Mr Purvis is not implying that the legal profession in Scotland as a whole does not provide a soundly based and professionally discharged service. He may be doing so inadvertently.
Heaven forfend.
I am not implying that the legal profession is not soundly based, but some of the structures, procedures and language that are associated with it put off many people. For that reason, support for members of the public in accessing the clear advice and information that the justice system provides and advice on their rights is vital in both civil and criminal situations. Inevitably, finance is a consideration, but the priority must be to ensure that there is good quality, clear and simple information on how the system works, what roles individuals have and what rights we enjoy. Such services must be accessible through websites, libraries, community councils, trusted individuals and organisations, as well as in schools. The basic tenets of law should be an integral part of citizenship education in schools. The legal rights that we enjoy are rights only when we can exercise them.
When they need it, people should be able to get legal advice in civil and criminal cases, on employment rights and in a range of other areas, regardless of whether they are young or old or whether they live in a rural or an urban area. I am glad that the Executive has been frank about identifying some of the areas where access is not at the moment fair and equitable for many people. People may not satisfy the financial eligibility criteria for civil legal aid. The introduction of a tapered system would represent progress. I hope that over the summer the Executive and the Scottish Legal Aid Board will give detailed consideration to how such a system could operate.
As a former justice spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, I can clarify one point for the member. Nicol Stephen has been elected by a majority of approximately three to one.
I am grateful to the member. I would not wish to confess to the Presiding Officer that my pager went off, because we have instructions to turn them off. I make no comment on my new party leader, other than to say that I think that he will be excellent. I suppose that I would have said that regardless of who the party leader was.
The exclusion of many people who are on relatively low incomes is one of the weaknesses in the current legal aid system. The minister also mentioned the lack of strategic and overall direction of the bodies that provide information and advice. The lack of a clear mechanism to relate the supply of services to the assessment of need, especially in rural areas, and the lack of a clear means to ensure and maintain a supply base of adequate numbers of solicitors for legal aid work or sustainable provision by the not-for-profit sector of non-legally qualified advisers are also weaknesses, as is the variable quality of information, advice and representation that are provided. All those areas are highlighted in the Executive's consultation. All the issues that Mr MacAskill raised need to be addressed.
I hope that we can move towards an overall reform programme that ensures that citizens know that they can receive not only good advice and information on civil law, but welfare rights advice, debt and money advice and consumer and housing advice, and that they have access to mediation services locally. Many of those services are provided by local authorities. Some are supported directly by the Scottish Executive, whereas others are supported through local taxation. Some of the services are very good. In representing Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale, my predecessors and I have been lucky to have been supported by dedicated citizens advice bureau staff, as well as by the very good services that are provided by Scottish Borders Council's welfare and benefits advisory service. However, consistency of approach and funding is necessary.
There has been discussion about funding. In 2003-04, £146 million was spent on funding legal assistance and £102 million of that was for criminal legal assistance. We recognise that the service is predominantly demand led and that being better able to match demand and supply is vital for effective future management of services.
There is still debate about whether a national co-ordinating body is the correct approach to take or whether a greater proportion of expenditure can be directed through local authorities that currently provide advice and assistance on a non-legally qualified basis, and which already have close relationships with the voluntary sector, which in addition, provides much-valued support, advice and information. For example, the Borders Voluntary Community Care Forum and the Borders voluntary youth work forum are both excellent bodies to which more direct core funding, rather than pilot funding, could be provided and in which provision of legal advice and support is mainstreamed with other forms of citizenship advice and support.
Kenny MacAskill asked good questions that a commission would ask. I hope that not just experts in the field will contribute to the consultation process that the Executive has begun, and that people who have gone through the system and people who have experienced difficulty accessing it will do so. I hope that people who are currently excluded—community groups, small businesses and others—will be able to add their views and contribute to overall reforms.
I hope that the strategy that the Executive has outlined will be broad in its outlook. We must move away from the perception that the law is just for the lawyers; we must widen it and get rid of jargon so that our fellow citizens will not be excluded from, scared of or lose faith in the legal system.
I depart from my scripted speech to congratulate Nicol Stephen on his election as leader of the Liberal Democrats. I will certainly enjoy watching his colleagues' attempts to outstrip one another in the effusiveness of their praise for him as he contemplates his ministerial team. It will not be lost on him that Jeremy Purvis was first out of the traps.
I start my speech proper by welcoming the Executive's consultation on the proposals for reform of the legal aid system. Many of my colleagues across the parties have already acknowledged that there are substantial weaknesses in the existing system, which have been identified by research, by members' experiences as lawyers or, indeed, by our experiences as MSPs as we try to assist constituents in gaining access to legal aid.
Some of the weaknesses that the Executive rightly seeks to address include the lack of strategic vision and the lack of co-ordination in the provision of publicly funded legal advice, information and representation; the genuine variation in the levels and quality of that provision; the differential access that we have all experienced; the very low income cut-off point of something like £9,570, which excludes huge numbers of people from accessing legal aid; and the decreasing numbers of solicitors who engage in legal aid work. In addressing those difficulties, I am sure that ministers will be mindful of the view from Labour and other benches that although we want an effective, efficient and modernised justice system, we want it above all to be accessible and fair. We need a system that ensures that the people who need the law will not be excluded from using it because of prohibitive cost, lack of knowledge or lack of available help.
It was once said to me by a lawyer in this place that the people who can access legal representation are either very well off or on very low incomes that qualify them for legal aid. Our existing system of financial assistance can indeed be harsh on those who are just outside the eligibility criteria. The number of grants for civil legal aid has been falling steadily for more than 10 years, which might suggest that people are not getting the services that they need because of a lack of funds.
I support the proposal to restructure financial eligibility and I welcome in particular the proposal to consider tapering support and raising the maximum income threshold to above the £9,570 that I mentioned earlier. That will ensure that people who are on moderate incomes are not excluded from pursuing justice.
Does the member agree that if the legal system's costs were made clearer to Parliament—through, for example, publication of hourly rates for different grades of legal aid—we laymen would be in a better position than we are at the moment to judge whether we are getting a fairer return for our outlay?
That is certainly one way of tackling the problem. However, I prefer to ensure that the system is sufficiently accessible to all. Instead of engaging in a direct debate with the public over differing legal rates, we should ensure that they get a service that is of the best possible quality when they need it.
Although I believe that changing the eligibility criteria will make a key difference to many of my constituents, it will do so only if sufficient solicitors are available to undertake legal aid work. Although I broadly support all the Executive's suggestions for improving matters—such as improving the cash flow of legal aid firms, assisting the repayment of student loans for trainees in legal aid traineeships and so on—I accept that we probably need a more fundamental review. However, I do not share the desire to set up a commission, because the consultation already offers us the opportunity to have a fundamental review if we are so minded.
Just to be clear, I should point out that the suggested commission is not necessarily meant to be an alternative. Clearly, we need a consultation to find out whether we can stick a finger in the dyke and fix things now. The commission will be for the long term.
It is not beyond the wit of members to focus on the short term and the long term in the consultation.
One short-term solution is to give SLAB more flexible powers either to employ solicitors directly or to contract private practitioners to provide legal aid services. I think that I am right in saying that part V of the Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 1986 enables SLAB to employ solicitors directly, but the power is not really used in a civil context. However, it has been used in a number of pilots including an asylum and immigration project in Glasgow which, although it was most welcome, was introduced a little while after it was most needed. I also understand from Maureen Macmillan that, in Inverness, a solicitor has worked with Citizens Advice Scotland in providing advice indirectly on problems so that clients can be better prepared when they go on to see solicitors.
I also welcome the minister's comments on the Public Defence Solicitors Office. The experience of the five-year pilot in Edinburgh has been positive enough for the service to be extended to Glasgow and Inverness. Needless to say, I am very keen that everyone should benefit from it. I wonder whether, in any specific plans to extend the pilot, ministers will be mindful of the need to start with the most disadvantaged areas.
I echo the concerns that were expressed by Maureen Macmillan and Kenny MacAskill about access to justice for women who have experienced domestic abuse. I would be grateful if the minister would urge SLAB to examine the matter urgently. Indeed, on a wider issue, I encourage SLAB to use its existing powers imaginatively to ensure that all people, particularly the most vulnerable people, have access to legal services.
As far as prevention is concerned, early identification and resolution of legal problems will ensure that problems do not escalate and thereby have greater financial and social costs for the individual and society. Like other members, I believe that better co-ordination between agencies to provide advice on welfare rights and consumer and debt issues, to tackle homelessness and to extend the services that community law centres provide so effectively might offer a useful way forward. I say to the minister that whatever changes are made, we should always be guided by the need to ensure that our legal system is accessible and fair to all.
I declare an interest as an enrolled but non-practising solicitor with historic experience as a civil legal aid lawyer for 12 years. It has been six years since I last practised but, even then, the legal aid system was imploding. Solicitors were voting with their feet and partners in some firms were not prepared to allow anyone to continue to do legal aid work, because it was being subsidised by their fees. This crisis has been a long time coming. I will come later to the Justice 1 Committee's report, which, as members will recall, is now five years old; there are things to say about how little we have moved forward since then.
I agree with much of what members have said. Simple things such as cash flow, which Jackie Baillie mentioned, can be relevant. If small firms in particular did legal aid cases, that might keep them doing business for the time being.
There is a lot of merit in Annabel Goldie's suggestion about accredited solicitors with different rates. There is merit in suggestions that have been made all round the chamber.
Jeremy Purvis referred to mediation. I went to Baltimore two years ago to look at how mediation operates there: it is taken seriously and used in large commercial cases. Companies no longer go at each other in court like bulls, thereby wasting money and court time. They mediate because they know that most civil litigation ends in compromise, either between the parties or imposed by the judge. That saves a great deal of public money all round. In Baltimore, mediation is also used in criminal cases. I do not know whether the ministers have visited Baltimore yet, but mediation is pushed by the leader there, who has made a great change to the system. The good thing about mediation is that parties have agreed to it. It is not adjudication; it is mediation. Parties buy into the solution and have to stick by it.
I refer to the briefing paper from Citizens Advice Scotland. CAS does a lot of good work, at a basic level, on the issues that Jackie Baillie referred to. Those issues include housing, in which many solicitors do not have technical expertise; hire purchase and debt; and employment, which is a specialist area. CAS also does great work on state benefits. However, its work is patchy and it is underfunded. It depends very much on volunteers, and on volunteer solicitors, who work in the evenings to give advice on criminal or civil matters. We must consider all those aspects.
A point was made about the costs of legal aid. I was pleased to hear the minister talk about contributions to criminal legal aid, because there is always an issue about how big the legal aid bill is. In civil legal aid, though, many people contribute. I note from the Legal Aid Board's figures that 30 per cent of civil costs are recovered, so to some extent civil legal aid pays its way through expenses.
I am disappointed that the report from the Justice 1 Committee—of which I was a member at the time—has made so little impact. The parties from which the committee took evidence are to be consulted again. We took evidence from Professor Alan Paterson; the Scottish Consumer Council; Citizens Advice Scotland; the Equal Opportunities Commission; the Faculty of Advocates; Victim Support Scotland; the Association of Scottish Legal Advice Networks; Scottish Women's Aid; the Glasgow Bar Association; the Law Society of Scotland; the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland—I could go on. All that evidence is contained in the report and, as far as I can see, nothing in the system has changed.
Sandra White talked about inconsistencies in the use of the pension credit. Recommendation 52 in the committee's report says:
"The Committee is concerned about inconsistencies in the treatment of benefits and recommends that as a matter of urgency the Executive should examine this matter with the aim of seeking to simplify the system"—
I accept Christine Grahame's point about the Justice 1 Committee's report. The Executive considered the report; indeed, it helped to inform what we did. Does she agree, however, that notwithstanding whether we accept any or all of the report, it is appropriate for the Executive to take soundings and to consult before it implements anything? Indeed, we would have been criticised had we not done so.
Unfortunately, we took that evidence five years ago. Five years ago, we told the minister about the inconsistencies in the system. That situation could have been remedied. There are still inconsistencies in the benefits system and we said that we looked forward to receiving proposals at an early stage. Likewise, in recommendation 116 we said:
"the Committee is seriously concerned about the lack of a strategic overview, planning and delivery of the provision of legally aided services in Scotland".
We said that five years ago. We said at the time—to be fair I will read it—that the committee
"is not yet convinced on the need to set up a legal services commission."
However, we have moved on.
My heart is with civil legal aid, having practised as a civil legal aid lawyer for 12 years and my concern—I say this to the minister to be helpful—is that, once the Executive has finished its consultation and implemented the Justice 1 Committee's report, we must have an independent commission to take a strategic overview on how we draw together all the skills in the interest of access to justice across the board, whether locally or nationally, and in the interest of the public purse. I welcome the minister's announcement that the fund will not be capped, but we must make the best use of the money in a society that is litigious—rightfully so, sometimes, given that people are more aware of their rights. That is the case especially now that we have the European convention on human rights and the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, which will raise other issues on access to buildings, for example.
I do not say that to be hostile. I ask the Executive not to waste the Justice 1 Committee's work and not to spend time doing another consultation with the same people—we could almost write their responses now—but to have an independent commission take a strategic look at the delivery of legal aid services throughout Scotland.
In any debate such as this, there must obviously be a tight balance between the public interest and the interests of justice on one hand and, on the other, value for money. It must also be appreciated that there are problems. Therefore, it is proper for the Executive to go down the lines that it suggested today. However, I hope that the fact that it has made a statement prior to the consultation does not indicate that some solutions have already been pencilled in in biro; we shall see what comes out of the consultation.
The costs of legal aid are clearly a matter for concern. Despite the fact that, last year, there was a 3 per cent drop in the number of legal aid grants, the costs have risen, partly because there are many more complex, long-running trials in the High Court. The number of cases for which legal aid may be granted should fall if the Executive follows through with its proposals to deal with many of the simpler matters by means of conditional offer. I do not approve of that approach to justice, but it would certainly save money, although its consequences elsewhere in society would be profoundly damaging.
The second serious concern is that lawyers are simply not willing to do legal aid work. One is reminded of the difficulties that arise in dentistry in some of the more remote regions of Scotland, where it is simply not economic to be a national health service dentist. Similarly, in some respects, it is no longer economic to be a legal aid solicitor. It must be remembered that many solicitors are doing legal aid work as a loss leader, because they are faced with a maximum legal aid fee of about £525 for a summary criminal trial. In some cases, that might give them a reasonable amount of profit. In other, complex cases, they will not make any money out of that fee but will do the case on the basis that there is the prospect of the accused person, his family or his associates committing further, more serious crime and that they will then come back with a solemn case that will provide some profit for the lawyer. I suggest to the minister that that is an unhealthy situation. If she proposes solutions that will improve that, they will be welcome.
Legal aid is an important aspect of our criminal and civil justice systems. I ask members to put themselves in the position of an 18-year-old boy.
None of us can remember that far back. It is too far.
I fully accept that it is too far back for Mr Stevenson.
The boy is 18 years of age and has not had a job since leaving school. He has been through the various new deal opportunities and other schemes but has no permanent employment. He decides that he will join the armed forces and is accepted for the Army but, when he is walking down the road one day, two police officers come up to him and say, "You're getting done for vandalism. You were seen spraying something on the wall. Turn out your pockets." He has an aerosol canister of blue paint in his pocket, but the police officers will not listen to the fact that he was spraying his uncle's car or that, while the offence was being committed, he was in his uncle's garage some distance away.
We have every complexity in a legal case in that scenario: there are possible difficulties of corroboration, there is best evidence, there is the question of alibi and there is a special defence. If an 18-year-old boy who has never worked can conduct his own defence on that basis, he must be an awful lot cleverer than I am—or, I suggest, than anyone else here is. The consequences of that case could be quite serious. If that individual is convicted, he could be fined £100. In itself, that is not all that serious, but he would then be precluded, on the basis of that conviction, from joining the Army. Whatever happens, we must not have a situation whereby legal aid is not available for such cases. Many people might be tempted to say that, given the costs, that case was a minor matter, for which legal aid need not be made available. The consequences of the conviction might be very serious, however.
It is essential with respect to the law and to European provisions—and, in fairness, to legislation that is in force here—for any person who faces custody or disqualification to have the opportunity of being represented. That must be remembered.
Let us consider the case of an elderly owner-occupier who gets somebody in to do some work on their house. Their roof is left exposed, water pours in and £1,000 of damage is caused. If that person discovers that they have not renewed their household insurance, they have to find £1,000. How do they pursue that tradesman? That is the sort of situation that can arise with respect to civil legal aid.
The solutions are complex. There would be dangers, however, in departing too radically from a system that has served Scotland well for 50 or 60 years. Nothing in this world is preserved in aspic, and the system must be examined. The Executive is quite right to do so. In the end, however, people will still require legal representation, and that must surely be available to them.
I hope that the Executive will come up with a comprehensive response to the consultation. It will be particularly interesting to find out what the legal bodies say on the matter. It will also be interesting to hear what the general public say. I suspect that there will not end up being any great difference between what exists today and what might be implemented in the future, but it is proper and correct for the Executive to test the system.
Despite the fact that Mr MacAskill's speech had much merit in it, his amendment proposes the establishment of a commission, which I think would be a time-consuming process and unlikely to bring about a result. As such, we are unable to support the amendment.
Thank you, Mr Aitken. You must tell us on a subsequent occasion what happened to the elderly MSP who vandalised his desk.
I had hoped that Bill Aitken would tell us what he was doing with the blue aerosol paint can, but that is perhaps for the future.
I make one point in passing. The last time that I spoke in the chamber, I had just one minute to address a rather important amendment in the stage 3 debate on the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Bill. Many colleagues were not able to take part at all in the debates on amendments; even ministers did not have time to get important points on the record. Today, on the other hand, there seems to be a lot of time to ruminate on the preliminary stages of a public consultation on legal aid. That subject is entirely worth while, but I think that the contrast illustrates a problem in the allocation of time by the Parliamentary Bureau. I agree with Donald Gorrie about very few things, but I agree with him about this one.
I had better turn to the debate, before the new Deputy Presiding Officer, who has just taken over in the chair, calls me to order. There is understandable concern about the expenditure of taxpayers' money on lawyers' fees. However, I will resist any temptation to be unkind about the legal profession. On the contrary, I express my thanks to local solicitors who undertake legal aid work in the sheriff court and district court in Haddington, and to others like them all over Scotland, in both local courts and the supreme courts.
I agree with Annabel Goldie and Kenny MacAskill, who said that there is a need to attract more talented solicitors and other lawyers to get involved in that essential work. The work might not be glamorous, but it is vital that citizens, particularly innocent citizens, who find themselves before the courts should have the benefit of proper, professional legal advice and representation. That work forms an essential part of our justice system and it should be properly supported.
The Executive's proposals aim to improve access to justice and to achieve better value for money and greater efficiency. I hope, and I am sure, that nobody will argue against that. I like the idea of there being better access to legal aid on civil matters. We all know that it is extremely difficult for ordinary citizens to take civil cases to court. One topical example is that there is no accessible legal remedy for most victims of defamation in the press. Unless they have the money of Mohammed Al Fayed or the connections of George Galloway, everyone else has to suffer in silence. If we are serious about the provision of access to justice, there is also a need for better access to civil justice; the idea of doing something in that regard is interesting.
I turn to criminal legal aid. A story appeared in The Herald of 16 June under the headline "Legal aid plan for accused to pay unless found innocent". Although I see no specific proposal of that sort in the consultation document, I have no problem with the principle of making the guilty pay for their defence if they can afford to do so. That said, we should be very cautious about anything that might drive innocent people to plead guilty in order to avoid the risk of incurring crippling costs. If the point were to come under consideration, it would need to be considered very carefully indeed.
I want to touch on a couple of further points that could usefully be considered in the context of the proposals. One of those points—access to justice on small claims—has been the subject of discussion with the minister over a long period. The other point, which arises from the Scottish Labour Party election manifesto of 2003, was raised earlier by Maureen Macmillan and Jackie Baillie. The manifesto says:
"We will review legal aid eligibility to improve coverage of domestic abuse and mediation services".
From our constituency work, all members know that that issue is extremely important. I wrote to the Solicitor General recently about a worrying incident in which a victim was very unhappy about the plea bargain that the fiscal had struck in her case. She had gone to a lot of trouble and had taken risks because she wanted the case to be taken to court, but in the end she was denied that opportunity.
I cannot overemphasise the importance of ensuring that criminal domestic abuse cases are prosecuted effectively. I suggest that the review should implement the Scottish Labour Party's commitment to improve legal aid for the victims of domestic abuse. I hope that the minister will respond to that point later.
The Deputy Minister for Justice knows what I am about to say next. There is wide consensus about the urgent need for consumers to have proper access to justice when they find that they have been sold dodgy goods or services. The current limits on access to the small claims courts are ridiculous: cases relating to anything that costs more than £750 have to go through complicated and expensive higher court procedures. The situation not only obstructs justice for many consumers but, for those cases that get to court, gives rise to significant legal aid costs. The case for raising the threshold to £5,000 is overwhelming—indeed, that is what has been done in the other United Kingdom jurisdictions. I remind the minister that, in a reply that he gave in the chamber on 11 November, he said that that uprating should be made in Scotland "sooner rather than later". That was seven months ago and we are still waiting.
I know that the minister is facing rearguard opposition to this long-awaited reform from a firm of solicitors with very influential connections, but I put it to him that Scottish consumers are being denied access to justice. It should be possible to make the necessary adjustment to the regulations without causing detrimental consequences for personal injury claims. If the Executive is serious about improving access to justice, by all means let us move forward on all the points that are covered in the consultation—indeed, I think that there is consensus on that in the chamber this afternoon. The minister cannot allow Thompsons to block indefinitely progress on Scottish consumers' access to small claims courts.
I first raised the issue on behalf of a constituent almost three years ago. In February of last year, a large number of members signed my motion calling for the limit to be raised. How much longer will consumers in Scotland have to wait for improved access to the small claims procedures? Although I welcome the proposals in the document, I must press the minister to address the long-delayed matter of access to justice for Scottish consumers in the small claims procedures.
I, too, was disappointed to hear that the whips had been scouring the corridors in an attempt to round up speakers for the debate. It is, however, just possible that the relationship between the level of interest in a debate and its importance is not always a direct one.
The minister began her speech by talking about the importance of legal aid reform. We should also recognise the importance of the Executive's general theme of access to justice, which covers attempts to address the physical barriers and barriers that stem from intimidation and emotional factors and the need to support people in a variety of ways to ensure that they have access to justice. However, the financial barriers to justice are also extremely high. Even if every other aspect of the Executive's work in this area was 100 per cent successful, the financial barriers alone would be enough to make us extremely worried.
In its letter—I assume that it was sent to all of us—the Scottish Legal Aid Board states:
"Scotland has a well developed legal aid system which provides wider scope than in the vast majority of other jurisdictions".
That may well be true, but the fact remains that access to justice is dependent upon being on one side of the ever-increasing wealth gap in our society. For people on one side, access can be found through legal aid if they are lucky. For people on the other side, the ability is there simply to buy access to law and justice. However, for most people in the middle the prospect of legal action can be financially terrifying. Even minor action can put a huge dent in the average bank account. If substantial, long-running or complex actions arise, the pressure to simply give up the search for justice can be huge. Phil Gallie was right to say that that applies not only to individuals, but to small businesses, charities, community groups and campaign groups.
My experience in that regard relates to two specific issues. One was the section 28 case, when affected organisations and charities had their funding frozen because of action that was taken not against them, but against the city council. To ensure that they had access to justice in the judicial review that took place, they had to ensure that they were represented. The only way in which they could do that was to find lawyers who were prepared to work essentially for nothing because of their sympathy with the case. The other case, with which there might be less sympathy on some benches, is the M74. Whatever people feel about whether the road should be built, the people concerned should have the right to challenge the minister's decision. They should not be barred simply by the threat of facing tens of thousands of pounds of expenses.
On the specific proposals, allowing legal aid to fund non-solicitor advice is welcome. I am sure that we have all seen much in the Citizens Advice Scotland briefing about the great range of work that is already going on, and the thousands of cases in which citizens advice bureaux around the country are providing support.
We need to be careful of some of the consequences. As Jackie Baillie mentioned, one consequence of providing more alternatives when people cannot access solicitors through legal aid is that people might feel that they have no option but to use the alternatives as substitutes for professional legal advice, when professional legal advice is what is required. As Scottish Women's Aid has argued, in some circumstances not accessing professional legal advice could have devastating consequences for people's personal safety and that of their children. Some of the alternative services that we support, such as mediation and alternative dispute resolution, are not always appropriate in, for example, domestic abuse cases. However, we should remember the large number of cases for which those alternative services are appropriate.
I see that Christine Grahame is not here—everyone I have mentioned in this debate has left the room before I have got to them. She mentioned her experience of Baltimore. Many European countries are making much better use of mediation and alternative dispute resolution than we are. Those services can lead not only to satisfactory outcomes, but to a far greater sense of participation and ownership of the solution to a conflict or a problem. I welcome the Executive's proposals on that issue.
Although some proposals have been on the table for several years, progress on them has been slow and conservative so far. I hope that the questions that are raised through the consultation will help to move matters on. I have sympathy with Kenny MacAskill's comments. He argued strongly for much more fundamental and radical reform of the system. I wonder whether, constructive though the consultation is as part of the process, it will lead to fundamental reform. Therefore, I intend to support Kenny MacAskill's amendment.
In my final few moments, I will say something about the fundamental reasons why we need to consider access to justice carefully. We all, I hope, want to arrive at a situation in which everyone is equal under the law. We are not there yet, but we may get there eventually. However, even if we are equal under the law, if access to the law remains a commodity, inequality and injustice in the system will persist. People have a right to health care, which is why we have a national health service and why we do not charge people to see their doctor or to visit their relatives in hospital; instead, we pay for that collectively. People have a right to education, so we have created schools that do not charge for lessons or exams; instead, we pay for them collectively. People have a right to speak to their elected representatives, so we do not charge them to come to surgeries, to vote or to put petitions before Parliament—we pay for that collectively. If access to justice and justice and equality under the law are rights, we should increasingly move towards paying collectively to ensure that people have no financial hurdles to get over to access their rights under the law.
I reassure Patrick Harvie that the whip of the SNP group has not been frogmarching anyone into the chamber to speak. Last Thursday, I was a willing volunteer for the debate, which is important.
Mr Gorrie helpfully told us the result of the Liberal Democrat leadership election. Earlier today, when I met Nicol Stephen in the corridor, he asked me, from my position of wisdom about party leadership, what advice I would give him. I simply said, "Don't do it." Unless he has resigned already, he has obviously not taken my advice. I hope that those on the Government front bench take my comments in the debate more seriously.
I welcome the Government's consultation document. The debate about the SNP proposal for the establishment of a commission and the Government's position on that hinges on the degree to which the consultation fits into a more strategic perspective and overview of legal services in Scotland. I accept that the Government has several initiatives under way to examine different components of the legal system. Ministers will be aware of the interest that I have taken in the regulation of solicitors. However, some of our uncertainty hangs on the extent to which all those different initiatives will be linked together to give a truly radical and comprehensive perspective of the reform that is required in the legal system in Scotland. I hope that the ministers will take seriously the case for strategic change that Kenny MacAskill made effectively.
I was prompted to speak in the debate partly as a result of representations that I received from solicitors in my constituency on an issue about which I subsequently wrote to the minister. The issue relates to the preparation of reports in the legal system on the welfare of children. Invariably, an element of legal aid is involved in the payment of solicitors to undertake that independent curator role. However, several solicitors have told me that they find it difficult to secure payment for that important work, which they undertake for the welfare of children and which relates to residency issues and other matters.
The problem arises because the Scottish Legal Aid Board deals with the solicitor who acts on behalf of the child, but the curator is an independent solicitor who is paid by that other solicitor, which means that the system never marries up and payments are never made on time. Solicitors have come to me with cases in which they have still not been paid for reports that were done four years ago. The Scottish Legal Aid Board washes its hands of all responsibility and says that it is for the solicitors who were commissioned to undertake the work to pay the bill, so the matter is for the Law Society of Scotland.
The reason why I cite that example—I am sure that the minister will respond to the points that I have raised in due course—is to add it to the concern that many members have expressed about the unattractiveness of legal aid work to many solicitors. If a lawyer cannot get paid for the work that they are doing, partners in their firm will start asking why that lawyer is doing it. Not everyone is motivated by the sense of public duty by which we would like them to be motivated; businesses have to get their fees. I hope that ministers will consider that issue as an example of how legal aid services are becoming unattractive. As I said to the minister during her opening speech, I am becoming concerned at the number of firms in rural Scotland that are now withdrawing from legal aid services. If there are only three solicitors firms in a town and the one that does legal aid work gives it up, the nearest legal aid firm can be 20 or 40 miles away, which undermines access to legal services.
I am attracted by some of the arguments that are put forward in the consultation paper about using alternative mechanisms for ensuring that advice and assistance are available much more widely through different channels, particularly in rural Scotland. I have the utmost admiration for the range of citizens advice bureaux services and welfare advice services that exist in my constituency, but they are operating in small towns where the case load is not enormous and if the funding streams are not there, they fall into jeopardy. There could be the double whammy of the removal of legal aid services and a lack of access to what we could describe as publicly funded advice and assistance services, which are essential to give people the quality advice that they require.
Kenny MacAskill spoke about the difficult balance in how legal aid is allocated between those whom we might perceive at the outset to be the victim and the aggressor, particularly in domestic violence cases. It might get allocated to the person whom we consider to be the perpetrator and not to the person on the receiving end of the aggression. That is a terribly difficult issue to resolve, but we have to resolve it, because the box that says "justice" is not being ticked. It is a difficult decision for the Scottish Legal Aid Board or any other organisation to make, but we have to find a way to give people greater comfort that justice is being dished out in the allocation of resources through the system.
I was pleased to hear Kenny MacAskill say—and to hear this being welcomed warmly throughout the chamber—that this is not a case of throwing more money at the problem. I do not come from the more-money school of politics. [Interruption.] Mr McNeil might laugh, but if he checks the record, he will find that that is true. I come from the more-value school of politics. A tremendous amount of money is being spent in this area of activity that could be better deployed if we had some of the flexibility to which the consultation document refers, funded more public services, ensured that some of the citizens advice bureaux services are more actively supported and distributed the cake in a different fashion from how we are distributing it just now.
No speech in a debate about access to justice would be complete without referring to the important issue of people's ability to complain about the justice system if it does them down. I welcome the consultation document that the Government has published on the issue and will respond to it. I am not sure whether that will be met with a sense of doom or with enthusiasm by the Executive. The consultation is an important step in re-engaging the public in judging the quality of these important services.
I call Kenny MacAskill. [Interruption.] Sorry, I meant Kenny Macintosh.
There is such a wealth of talent before you, Presiding Officer. I thank the Executive for bringing the debate to the chamber and for the launch of its consultation on improving publicly funded legal assistance. I recognise that the steps that the ministers are taking are part of a series of measures that we have taken over the past six years to improve access to the justice system. I also have no doubt that the reforms are necessary.
I will describe the situation from my perspective as a constituency MSP. I imagine that my experience is not untypical; indeed I will echo many of the points that the minister made in her opening statement and which others throughout the chamber made. Perhaps the most common problem that I have come across concerns individuals who have been—or feel that they have been—denied access to the law and to justice because they cannot afford it. I am tempted to put the word "justice" in inverted commas because I am sure that we all know that the law and justice are not synonymous. Despite the reforms that have taken place, the perception remains that the wealthy and the powerful will always be able to use the law and that, through legal aid, the poorest may have access but not necessarily choice—Jackie Baillie made that point. For the vast majority of people, lawyers remain an expense that they can ill afford.
We must clarify the principles on which legal aid is granted. To be specific, we must move to a system that better reflects the needs of people in our communities when they need it most and that still secures value for taxpayers' money. We must also ensure that legal aid is applied fairly and even-handedly across the board in civil and criminal cases. The current open-ended nature of the system, in which there is no upper limit on legal aid, must be examined. Not only can such a system lead to disproportionate sums of money being spent on a few cases; it creates an incentive to keep cases going without reaching a speedy settlement. I have no doubt that we can improve the current system, but I am under no illusion that, wherever we draw the line for financial assistance, things will be difficult to bear for those who are on the wrong side of that line.
Difficult and bitter divorce wrangles over child custody, maintenance or property are perhaps the second most common types of case that I hear about from constituents. One side qualifying for legal aid in such cases can often generate huge resentment or feelings of unfairness. Whether or not the accusations of untruths or fraud that flow back and forth in such cases are justified or upheld in the end, the lack of transparency that surrounds legal aid decisions and the consequent lack of confidence and trust in the system further exacerbate arguments that are already difficult to resolve. I appreciate that client confidentiality is an important principle, but greater openness and transparency and robust procedures would engender greater confidence in the system.
From comments on legal aid that many people have made, I have picked up the underpinning feeling—unfair or otherwise—that the system is run by lawyers for lawyers. At worst, there is a feeling that people play the system, but at best there is consensus that the system is demand led, that it does not address the needs of communities and that it is not fair and equitable to everybody. I think that legal aid increasingly goes to cases that fit the qualifying criteria rather than to those that are most deserving or of most merit—in other words, the system is self-serving. A proposal that is out for consultation—which the minister mentioned—is trying to address that matter through a planning framework. We must make progress along those lines. I recognise that the suggested new national co-ordinating body presents difficulties, but we can do much now to improve planning and access. I will expand on that point in a moment.
I have mentioned bad experiences, but before Annabel Goldie intervenes on behalf of colleagues in the legal profession, I should say that I do not universally condemn legal aid or lawyers. The cases that come to my attention tend to be cases in which the legal process or legal aid has broken down, but there are many successes. In recent years, developments such as the Public Defence Solicitors Office have shown how we can marry efficiency, choice and quality in a publicly funded legal service. I am delighted that that service has been expanded to Glasgow and hope that that has happened with a view to its becoming universally accessible.
I conclude by mentioning the most important development that the Executive's consultation has flagged up: proper funding and support for non-legally qualified advisers as well as solicitors and advocates. There are many providers throughout the country—in fact, much advice is provided by local authority-run services—but the citizens advice bureaux are probably the best known of the alternative providers. There will be many benefits as a result of putting such advice on to a more secure footing, coupled with the quality assurance that are also part of the consultation. On quality assurance, I recognise the fear that Patrick Harvie mentioned. The system should not be allowed to become a second-best system.
Many people turn to local CABx at least initially for information about their rights and the courses of action that are open to them or when they need an advocate or someone to accompany and guide them through a legal process. Many lawyers will provide a free initial consultation, but CABx can do the same without individuals worrying at that stage about potential legal bills or expenses. CABx can also suggest alternatives to the courts or legal routes to resolve disputes or differences. However, CABx services—like other voluntary providers—are vulnerable as a result of their need for funding, and short-lived services do not fill users with confidence or give the same guarantees of proven experience and quality.
For example, my local CAB in East Renfrewshire supported an excellent and well-attended legal advice clinic that was provided by a local solicitor but delivered under the CAB's auspices. However, when that firm closed its local branch, the service was discontinued and, so far, a replacement service has been difficult to establish. Not only would funding the CABx and other organisations to provide legal advice services be one of the most cost-effective ways of opening up access to the legal system for many people; it would break the monopoly of legal aid work that is enjoyed by solicitors and advocates. It would open up a closed system and support appropriate alternatives in the court.
Many colleagues will have seen the submission from Citizens Advice Scotland. I whole-heartedly endorse the principles that it outlines. Civil justice should be needs based, not demand based; it should be client centred, not institution centred; it should lead to the greater empowerment of citizens; and it should be preventive as well as responsive to crises. The submission outlines the successful in-court advice projects that are run by the CAB in Aberdeen, Airdrie, Dundee and Hamilton, which are funded by the Executive.
I do not pretend to have covered the full range of issues that are under consideration in the Executive's consultation on legal aid. However, it is clear from comments that have been made from members on all sides of the chamber that there is broad agreement on the issues that we need to address: access; fairness; a needs-based service; appropriate use of alternatives to the courts; structures to improve the quality of advice from professional and voluntary services; and value for money. I believe that the Executive addresses all those issues in its consultation on legal aid, and it is already supporting some projects in practice. I hope that we can build a similarly broad agreement on the measures that are needed to reform legal aid and to ensure that the justice system works for us all.
I endorse what John Home Robertson said about the length of debates, but I pay tribute to Margaret Curran, who recognised members' dissatisfaction with stage 3 of the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Bill. I welcome the fact that more time is being given next week to consideration of the Transport (Scotland) Bill and to the Smoking, Health and Social Care (Scotland) Bill, with the promise that the matter will be addressed more thoroughly in the autumn. Progress is being made on the important point that John Home Robertson raised.
I was a member of the previous Justice 1 Committee. I also spent a lot of my youth running round a running track, and I think that a lot of politics is like that: we do not go round the track just once. It is certainly not a 400m race, and it is not even an 800m race—it is more like a 10,000m race, and we see the same points again and again and say, "Oh, we have been here before." We are not very quick at pressing on and advancing matters. Perhaps we could look at that. There obviously has to be consultation, but I think that sometimes there is a lack of progress.
Nevertheless, progress has been made in some quarters, to which I must pay due credit. At lunch time, I had a discussion with a senior police officer, who gave me examples of distinct improvements that have been made in the speeding up of the courts process. It has always struck me as a very bad aspect of the system that it takes months and months for cases to come to court. There are now quite a lot of examples of things being done better, which is excellent. We also passed a bill some time ago to reform the Law Society of Scotland's internal procedures. That has resulted in a better way of dealing with complaints against solicitors, with more lay involvement and more speedy resolution of the problems. So, life is not entirely bad.
I endorse the point that was made by Jackie Baillie and others, which is that to be involved with the law someone has to be either very rich or very poor. The great bulk of people in between get a raw deal at the moment. It is difficult for a Liberal to support means testing, as we are, by nature, very much against it; nevertheless, I support means testing on this specific issue. The proposed tapering scheme, whereby people pay a bit towards their legal expenses and get a bit of help from the state, with the size of the two bits varying depending on their income, is the right way forward. There are some good points in the Executive's proposals, of which that is one.
I was appalled by a statement in the document that one of the featured proposals was to
"properly reward early investigation of the case",
which is good,
"and remove existing financial incentives to resolve cases at a later stage".
If there is any financial incentive to postponing or delaying cases and thereby fouling up the courts, we certainly want to remove it. I was not aware that there was such an incentive and we have to sort that out.
This is a subject for my standard prevention-not-cure speech, which everyone has heard before several times, so they can switch off. Kenneth Macintosh made the point that if we get involved earlier on and help organisations such as the citizens advice bureaux to help people to sort out their affairs, we will save a lot of money and court time and keep people out of the legal system, which would be doing them a great favour.
I understand that there is a good system in the Highlands whereby the Scottish Legal Aid Board pays a solicitor to work with the CABx. That seems to be working very well, so we should extend it right across the country. We should also encourage the volunteer solicitors who play a big part in CABx by being available at certain times to help people whom the CABx refer to them. Many solicitors volunteer in that way to develop their experience and get something good on their curriculum vitae.
I endorse entirely what Kenneth Macintosh said. CABx and similar organisations must continue to get secure funding. That would help to create a much better society than the one that we have at the moment. I support SLAB being given more powers to plan services better, to fund non-legal services as well as legal services, and also to fund CABx. The direct employment of salaried solicitors would avoid the difficulty caused by solicitors no longer being willing to work under the legal aid system.
There are some good things in the proposals that are before us. I hope that we can make progress and that we do not just end up with another consultation document in a year or two.
Although I am aware that the consultation is divided into two parts, I intend to concentrate on civil matters.
I note that the consultation refers to publicly funded legal assistance as
"advice on matters which raise a legal issue or which, if not resolved earlier, could result in legal action".
I welcome the fact that legal advice is defined as advice about the law that can come from a variety of sources and agencies and is not necessarily legal advice from a solicitor. That point was well made by John Swinney. Legal advice can come from advice agencies or public bodies such as local authorities or voluntary sector organisations on the basis that the majority of those organisations receive some public funding.
I am pleased that the Executive recognises that
"funding arrangements for voluntary sector provision are often described by service providers as insecure, thus threatening continuity and development of services"
That view was echoed by Kenny Macintosh and Donald Gorrie. It is certainly my experience in Central Scotland and the experience of others throughout Scotland that voluntary organisations often have to compete with local authority projects in a potential conflict of interest. The challenge is therefore for the civil aspect of the consultation to establish the best framework and strategy for the delivery of publicly funded legal assistance.
However, I note that the Executive's consultation document also states:
"Each local authority is … better placed than any other organisation … to take on the function of planning and ensuring appropriate local civil PFLA provision in its area".
In addition, I note that the Executive favours
"a consensual approach … based on close co-operation between local government, the Scottish Executive and a national co-ordinating body".
My question to the minister is how she envisages that the proposed new arrangements would address the current unfair and inequitable situation that is highlighted by the experiences of my constituents in the North Lanarkshire Council and South Lanarkshire Council areas, where local people and communities have been refused legal aid that would have allowed them to challenge the local authority's decision to grant planning permission for projects at Bothwell park in Hamilton and Dunbeth park in Coatbridge. In both those cases, the ground was gifted to local communities for the common good. How would the proposed arrangements ensure a level playing field in legal representation to redress the injustice whereby the local authorities have used taxpayers' money to employ Queen's counsel to represent them in the Court of Session, where they applied for the waiving of the provision against the granting of planning permission in those parks?
Those important points—like a number of those that were mentioned by Patrick Harvie—require to be considered, given what the minister said about accessibility being a fundamental issue in the consultation. Indeed, fairness is one of the main criteria that are mentioned in the consultation, which seeks to ensure that any strategy that is decided on is fair to the vulnerable, to hard-working people and to communities.
I regret that I do not have time to consider other aspects of the consultation in more detail, but I urge the minister to consider extending the pilot project to which both Jackie Baillie and Donald Gorrie referred, which was started in 2002. The project is delivered by CAS, but it involves the Scottish Legal Aid Board providing the funding for an Inverness-based solicitor to work with citizens advice bureaux in 13 locations in the Highlands and Islands. According to the Deputy Minister for Justice, the project has worked well, so I believe that it could be rolled out throughout Scotland without the need for further consultation.
In conclusion, on the second part of the consultation, I welcome any measures that strive to deliver increased consistency and transparency in the funding arrangements for criminal PFLA. As Annabel Goldie indicated, we will not support the SNP amendment. I fully recognise that the amendment is well intentioned, but it would not be in the interests of justice, as setting up a commission to consider PFLA generally would lead merely to an unacceptable delay in the introduction of the necessary reforms. Those reforms must be put in place as soon as possible to increase access and to ensure that the system of legal aid and advice is fair to all.
Well, this is like being back in school. I thought that the exams were over, but here we have a question paper with 40 questions on it. Unlike in most school exams, though, it appears that we are required to answer all 40 questions. I will return to the consultation document in a minute or two.
I thank the minister very sincerely indeed for giving MSPs the opportunity to discuss the lives of a group of people—namely, lawyers—who are considerably less popular than even we are. In the States, anti-vivisectionists who campaign to stop the use of rats in laboratories have said that they have no objection to lawyers being used instead, as there are more lawyers than rats and the lawyers are less popular.
That said, let me be absolutely candid in saying that my personal experience of lawyers is that they are impeccable. In my business life, when I worked in the bank, I found that the lawyers with whom I had to draw up contracts were, frankly, the best people to deal with, because they came back rapidly and they responded to my needs. In my civil life, my personal, family lawyer is disappointed to have been moved down from his previous position at the top of the Scotland Against Crooked Lawyers list to the halfway point. I have known him for 50 years and I think that he is a great guy. Even though he is a Tory—and therefore I fundamentally disagree with him politically—he has served the needs of my father, my mother, myself and my siblings. Lawyers fulfil a key role in our society and, by and large, they do so well. They have a public relations problem, but it is not my job to fix that one way or the other.
One interesting little thing might be derived from Kenny MacAskill's contribution, if I may reinterpret some of what he said. It was said yesterday that it costs the United Kingdom £37 million to have the royal family. Of course, prosecutions are made in the name of the Crown—we have the Crown Prosecution Service and, in Scotland, the Crown Office—because the monarch used to be the source of justice. King Solomon was asked to decide who was the mother of a child, and he said, "I will divide this child." Of course, one mother—the real mother—stepped forward and said, "Don't! Give it to the other woman." Justice was served by going to the king. Kenny MacAskill's call for an individual who could resolve small criminal issues as well as civil issues would return us, perhaps, to a tradition that is thousands of years old. I suspect that he did not have that in mind, but nonetheless I ask him to consider, when making his speeches, how others, including myself, might interpret them.
There are sources of legal advice other than lawyers. As an MSP, I find that I almost never have a surgery without saying to somebody, "My experience suggests that this is likely to be how the law works, but if you want to act on it, don't take my word for it. I'm not a lawyer. You'll have to see a lawyer." I suspect that that is true for other members, too. Many people come to see MSPs with legal problems, because they have already paid for us. We are on the public purse and there is no price to pay at the door.
The CABx are excellent organisations, but there are not all that many of them in the north of Scotland. I have one in my parliamentary constituency, but where I live is more than an hour's travel away from it, and many of my constituents are not nearly so well off in that regard. The minister has indicated a willingness to open her mind and the minds of her colleagues in the Executive to new ways of looking at things, and I very much welcome her willingness to use, as it were, barefoot lawyers.
Let us consider the consultation document. Our amendment turns on the document and on what we would wish to do in the longer term. The document contains 40 questions. Who is going to answer the questions? It will be the people who select themselves to do so and choose to respond to consultations—the usual suspects. If we open up the document, we discover that it is not immediately accessible to the general public and laymen, because it does not have a codified explanation of the terms that are used. Almost all of them are explained at some point in the text, but question 13 refers to
"an enhanced rate for solicitors undertaking civil A&A work".
That is fine, but where is "A&A" defined? It is defined on page 4, right back at the beginning of the document, embedded in a footnote. Like many consultation documents, the document is designed for those who already know the system and who are probably already interacting with the Government on public policy formulation.
The commission would be a different animal. It would have to be proactive and to go out and look at what there is elsewhere in the world. It would have to talk to ordinary people who have had life-changing experiences of the legal system, civil or criminal.
Will Mr Stevenson give way?
I am really running out of time. I would have accepted an intervention had it been made earlier.
Talking to ordinary people is one of the things that a commission can do. It will take longer—and we must not avoid making changes while it is doing its work—but if we do not have it, we will be back here in five years' time making further changes to the legal aid system. We are quite content to support the Executive's motion—with which there is no problem; we simply think that it can be added to.
There are things that we could do that might lower the cost of law in Scotland. For example, codifying the legal system would make it more accessible. That would be a long-term project, because the law is scattered all over the place. I am not saying that that proposal is SNP policy, and certain lawyers are not necessarily in favour of it. The point is that we must think radically because we have a serious problem. If we do not engage and consider such possibilities at this stage, we will not make the progress that we need to make.
Justice is not delivered in a court; it is delivered when victim and defender are reconciled to each other's actions and their effects. We can use lawyers to deliver justice, but we can often deliver it without them.
I support my colleague's amendment.
We have had a fascinating debate in which members of all parties have made good points.
I think that it was Bill Aitken who asked why we were having a debate before the consultation had finished; he said that he hoped that we did not have a closed mind. What we have heard confirms why we had the debate—it represented an opportunity to open up the discussion. Far from having a closed mind, we want to solicit a wide range of views, regardless of how challenging they might be to what we or others think. I thank members of all parties for sending out a number of extremely good, fascinating, well-constructed and positive messages.
I want to pick up on another point that Bill Aitken raised, which Stewart Stevenson echoed when he talked about the consultation document and how the consultation is proceeding. If Stewart Stevenson thinks that the consultation document is bad, he ought to have seen the original. His point is valid. I put on record that, even though the consultation document has been issued, the Minister for Justice and I are still striving to ensure that the consultation goes beyond the usual suspects; we have again instructed officials to that effect this week. We do not want it to be confined to lawyers—we want to hear what ordinary members of the public have to say and we do not believe that the solution is simply to stick an advert in a newspaper somewhere and hope that people will respond. We have told our officials that we want them to explore other ways of ensuring that the widest possible audience is engaged in the process. We have a genuine desire to hear from people. We are not bereft of ideas—we have put suggestions to our officials—but if anyone has anything to say about how the consultation can be widened, we will be more than delighted to hear from them.
I welcome what the minister has just said about the openness of the consultation process. Will he have a similar discussion with his officials about encouraging open communication on the regulation of the legal profession consultation, to ensure that it is as broad as possible?
Indeed—the same principles apply. I would welcome any suggestions on how that consultation could be widened. I will return to that point.
I turn to the line of Kenny MacAskill and the SNP on a commission, which was adequately dealt with by Annabel Goldie. What we are proposing represents an opportunity to act rather an opportunity to delay. The consultation will give everyone—individual MSPs, political parties, lawyers, voluntary organisations and individuals—the opportunity to make suggestions that go further than might have been thought. [Interruption.] There is an opportunity to think radically, but it would not be right to delay that process by setting up a commission.
My point is simple. How will we look beyond the boundaries of Scotland to the experiences of other countries? None of us should have a closed mind or imagine that we have all the answers.
The point is well made and I hope that it will be reflected in the consultation. I do not expect the process to end with the consultation—it should be evolutionary. That takes me to another issue raised by John Swinney, who asked what we are doing to join up all the different points and whether we are seeing the issues in a more integrated way. I suggest to him that we are. In a short period, we are looking to bring about a fundamental transformation of our legal system. This debate fits into that transformation. We have had High Court reforms, reforms of summary justice, the Management of Offenders etc (Scotland) Bill and we are consulting on the regulation of the legal profession, to which I will return. We also intend to consider the reform of civil law. Legal aid is vital in underpinning access to justice.
John Swinney mentioned the regulation of the legal profession. We want to ensure that the profession is properly regulated and that people are able to make complaints. If there are suggestions to be made, people should let us hear them.
A number of members, including John Swinney, Patrick Harvie and Jeremy Purvis, mentioned mediation and alternatives. Several members spoke about non-qualified people—perhaps not barefoot lawyers, as Stewart Stevenson termed them—becoming involved. We are keen to build on the good work that has already been done. We are not proposing to transfer responsibility from local authorities to the Executive, but good work, funded locally, is being done by Citizens Advice Scotland and by Money Advice Scotland, which is attempting to provide a regulated quality-assurance structure. Good work is also being done by welfare rights officers. The point has been made that we need to ensure that people access the appropriate advice, at the appropriate time, from the appropriate individual, without necessarily having recourse to lawyers.
We are keen to promote and support mediation where that is the best option. We have considered some of the work that is being done by Chief Judge Bell and others in Baltimore. Recently, a lawyer wrote to ask me to write to a housing department about what was happening in a case. Presumably, that lawyer charged the individual who was seeking legal advice and assistance. I do not want that situation to continue. As Patrick Harvie and others said, we provide such assistance at public expense and no one should be charged twice for it.
Jackie Baillie and a number of others asked about the use of part V powers. Good work is being done in that area. A number of projects, including in Inverness and the Highlands, have already been approved for extension and have proven to be valuable. We are keen to extend that work and are considering a range of diverse projects. If more can be done using part V powers, it should be done. I am keen to work with the Scottish Legal Aid Board to ensure that that work continues. Similarly, the public defenders work is proving its worth and adding significant value.
John Home Robertson raised legitimate concerns about the time that we are taking to review small claims work and jurisdiction limits. I apologise for that. We are struggling with a particularly thorny problem. I need to consider whether there is another way of extracting small claims from the system or whether we should opt for a more fundamental review that examines in detail the arguments of those involved. There is no excuse for the delay, and I am sorry for it. As the member said, we need to find a way forward.
All in all, this has been an exceptionally good debate that has contributed a great deal to identifying the issues that we need to consider. We will go through in fine detail all the points that have been made. We will meet officials to ensure that none of the suggestions that have been made today is overlooked. If, in the fullness of time, any member wants to submit more ideas to us, we will be more than happy to consider them.
I thank the members who have contributed to the debate and hope that, at the end of the process, we will make proposals that meet the interests of justice—as many members have said—and add to the quality of the support and service that are available in Scotland today.