Chamber and committees

Okay. The committee will be keen to follow that up.

Over a number of weeks, including in this morning’s session, we have been discussing the mixed model of payment and delivery, which the Government’s discussion paper calls for. The sense is that it could address some of the issues of identifying and meeting needs in the current system. However, to help to inform our work, it would be useful to get a sense on what panel members’ feelings are about the advantages and disadvantages of that mixed model.

Obviously, there are concerns about the amount of money in the system in general, and the risk with any model is that people fall through the cracks. Can you say something about what the Government is doing to ensure sufficiency of funding? I take the point about trying to move to a multiyear settlement, but what is the Government doing to ensure that people do not fall through the cracks in a mixed model?

Funding is one part of reform, but there are larger issues. There are short-term issues and issues that appear to be longer-term, which might require legislation. Do you understand the frustrations that people have with the time that this has taken and will take? I appreciate that we need to get things right, but throughout our evidence taking, the committee has heard a degree of frustration with the slow pace and with us not achieving as much as we hoped to during this session of Parliament.

That was a very comprehensive and helpful answer.

Sure. As I said, I appreciate that responsibility for legal aid sits with the minister’s justice colleagues. Nevertheless, from an equalities point of view, this committee and the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee have heard evidence that women who are leaving an abusive relationship very often have to go round 10s and 10s of solicitors to access support. Very often, they miss out on support because of financial thresholds, or because their abusive partner finds a way to intervene to prevent them from accessing that assistance.

Given your equalities brief, do you share the concerns of this committee and the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee? What do you view as being your role in helping to drive forward the review in order to make a change? I appreciate what you say about not being able to compel solicitors, but there is clearly a role for the Government to work with SLAB to push that forward.

Good morning. The committee is particularly interested in the matter of access to legal aid, and work is being done on that across the Parliament, certainly in committees such as the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee. It would be useful to get the minister’s view, first, on work that the Government is undertaking to reform legal aid. There is a short-term piece of work on that, but it is not as broad as people had hoped would be achieved in the Parliament. However, there is a commitment to a longer-term piece of work, which might involve legislative change. The consultation documents that the Government has produced do not seem to cover the issues that we are discussing around financial abuse and domestic abuse more widely. Does the minister see that as a priority, and how is she working to influence a wider review with her justice colleagues?

I appreciate that, and I have had sight of that paper. Does the minister appreciate, however, that we are in the final furlong of the current session of Parliament and meaningful change will be difficult, and that there is frustration from both the legal profession and people seeking support about the lack of reform? Would she recognise that, in the paper that was published in February, issues in relation to people leaving an abusive relationship and requiring support are not mentioned? Would she recognise her role in ensuring that we do something on those issues as quickly as we can, given the evidence that we are hearing?

I am conscious that my colleagues have questions, so I will stop there.

The minister discussed the Law Society’s view and the exchange of letters that happened yesterday. She mentioned unintended consequences a number of times, but it is not clear from my discussions with the Law Society what those would be. It is concerned that it does not have clarity on what the minister has referred to. Indeed, it is keen that we take what I have described as a belt-and-braces approach by putting the issue at the forefront of the bill.

Although I intend still to move forward in that regard, I understand and respect what the minister said about her revision to the explanatory notes and her willingness to accept the Law Society’s wording on the issue, which will go some way to finding the compromise that we are looking for. However, given the significant concerns that have been raised by the Law Society in its correspondence, I will press amendment 117.