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Mr. Garnier: I am most grateful to be called to contribute to this important debate. We are at the point of collision in our deliberations, but that is not unusual when a matter is of concern to those who think about it.
The collision is between the arguments advanced in another place and the Minister's arguments, if I can use that word in connection with what he has said. The Minister had to resort to abuse. He said that lawyers were demanding that their vested interests should be protected against the freedom that he claims will be provided by the amendments that he has tabled. He also said that the amendments would allow the wider public greater access to a full range of lawyers, including both salaried state defenders and those in private practice.
I have never believed that argument by abuse is a substitute for the proper evidential and intellectual analysis of a proposal.
I bow to no man in my admiration of the Parliamentary Secretary's ability to read out unthinkingly the civil service brief with which he has been provided by the Lord Chancellor. There is no doubt that he knows how to read. However, this is not a trivial matter, despite the low attendance in the Chamber this afternoon. No matter how emollient or smooth the Minister's tone, and no matter how he puts forward the words that he read out a moment ago, not much of value or worth underlies them.
I begin by reminding the House what clauses 13 and those immediately following, headed "The Criminal Defence Service", are all about. The Legal Services Commission replaces the Legal Aid Board to run legal aid, for criminal cases via a criminal defence service, and for family/civil cases through a community legal service fund. Lawyers and other providers need a contract from the Legal Services Commission to offer services under the fund, and the Legal Services Commission has the power to make any type of contract.
In relation to criminal cases, most criminal defence service services will be provided under contract, usually at a fixed price. I fully accept the point made by the Minister, the Lord Chancellor and other loyal members of the Government and their supporters, that we are looking at a mixed system. There will not be a wholly state defender system. Some criminal defendants will enjoy the services of private practitioners, but other defendants--
this will be the subject of a debate later this afternoon--will not, and they will be required to make use of the services of employed salaried state defenders.
Those contracts, to which I have referred, will cover everything from police station advice to Crown court representation. As I understand it, the Government intend that high-cost criminal defence service cases will be subject to individual contracts. The possible introduction of United States-style public defenders employed by the criminal defence service with a favoured long-term plan of mixing private and staff lawyers is envisaged, as I implied a moment ago. The courts are to decide if it is in the interests of justice to grant representation under the scheme. The powers previously enjoyed by others will now be transferred to the criminal defence service.
Eventually, legally aided defendants will be able to choose only lawyers with a contract. In high-cost cases, the choice will be limited to lawyers on a specialist panel and, in certain circumstances, defendants are to be assigned to a lawyer. Means testing will be abolished and the court will be able to make convicted defendants repay some or all of their defence costs.
As with so much of the Bill, the aspects that we are now discussing are very much a curate's egg--good in parts but, unfortunately, also bad in parts. No matter how much the Minister and his master seek to persuade the wider public that what they are doing is all good, I regret to say that a proper analysis of what they seek to do does not allow that case to succeed.
You may feel, Madam Speaker, that this is a deeply interesting esoteric discussion to listen to on a Wednesday afternoon. After all the excitement of Prime Minister's Question Time, it must be hideous to have to chair a discussion about arguments over one sort of lawyer or another. [Interruption.] Fortunately, I am deaf in my left ear--like the Labour Government--and I did not hear what the Minister said. It is unlikely to matter; I heard his speech, and I do not imagine that we have much to learn from him.
On 5 July, our revered, noble and learned Lord Chancellor went to Edinburgh, the capital of his home country, to address the Common Law Judiciary Association. He made it clear--and I agree with him--that the independence of the judiciary is a cornerstone of our constitution. He went on to say--and I again agree--that one guarantee of the independence of the judiciary,
and one reason why members of the public and Members of Parliament can have confidence in it, is that the profession of advocacy, whether among solicitors or barristers, is also independent.
Advocates are able--from my own experience, I believe that it is their second nature--to appear before courts and judges against public authorities, Government Departments and police forces, and fearlessly to represent their clients' interests, whether or not the clients are popular or appealing to the press, the judiciary or the jury. If I have not made my interest clear already, may I declare that I am a practising member of the Bar. It is our firm duty to represent our clients irrespective of our prospects of promotion or career or remuneration. [Interruption.]
It is permissible for Ministers to snigger when members of the Bar or solicitors make that point, and it has happened many times. They say how old-fashioned we are and how sad it is that Opposition Members should seek to protect the vested interests of the privately financed Bar. I beg to differ with that view. It is of huge constitutional importance that the independent Bar andthe independent solicitors' profession on which the independent judiciary is founded and nourished should be able to appear in the courts without having to worry about whether what they do is favourable or appealing to the state.
The state already prosecutes through the Crown Prosecution Service, which, after 10 years, is beginning to find its feet. We have not yet had the happy experience of a criminal defence service. One need only look across the Atlantic to see what has occurred in the United States. Indeed, we need look only along the corridor to the other place. We can read the record of debates about the Bill conducted by Labour peers who have considerable experience of the law, and who, with all due respect to the Parliamentary Secretary, have greater experience than his.
Let me refer the House to an intervention made by Baroness Kennedy of the Shaws. As far as I recall, she is not a card-carrying member of the Conservative party; indeed, from time to time--certainly during the deliberations in which she took part in the other place--she may have doubted whether she should be a card-carrying member of the Labour party.
The noble Lady made several trenchant points, although they may not yet have sunk in for Members on the Treasury Bench, but my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) and I will draw them to the attention of the House--or at least to the attention of those Members who are unfortunate enough to be in the Chamber this afternoon listening to my speech. I shall paraphrase the noble Lady's remarks because I do not have her words in front of me. From her experience of talking to lawyers in the United States, she found that those who were the least experienced and the most susceptible to pressure found it necessary to join the state defender service. As a consequence, deals were done; pressures were exerted on those lawyers to deliver the list and ensure that the throughput of cases was achieved to the satisfaction of the prosecutors and the courts, and, no doubt, to the career satisfaction of the state defender--but not necessarily to the advantage of the defendant whom they were supposed to represent.
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