Legal Services Bill [Lords]

The hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) is absolutely right to say that the possibility exists of enhancement of, as well as detriment to, the service in rural areas. However, he also indicated his concern about the potential difficulties. I very much welcome Government amendment No. 85, and I hope that it is sufficient to the task of ensuring that we deal with the access to justice issues that many of us fear will be a reality. I heard the intervention from the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Field), and I am sure—given that I am one of his constituents in at least one of those cities for a couple of days each week—that there is no great difficulty in his constituency in accessing lawyers. Were he to come to Somerton and Frome, he might find that the distances involved are a little longer, and that the opportunities to find a suitably qualified lawyer—or, more importantly, a lawyer who has the business capacity to provide services, particularly in legal aid work—are a little more limited. My great concern is that in the sort of communities that I represent, where there is often a dearth of criminal practice solicitors providing legal aid work, for instance, and of those involved in family law under legal aid provision, and where the legal aid regime itself is constantly tightening the screw and concentrating work in a few areas, mainly the urban conurbations, the only way that some of these services are provided to our constituents is via a complex mesh of cross-subsidy within practices. In such a situation, certain work is more profitable and effectively underwrites the ability of the one or, at most, two practitioners who are prepared to do these non-cost-effective parts of the practice. It does not take much disturbance to that system for the remaining partners to say, ““Sorry, this cross-subsidy is now more than we can bear.”” The concern about alternative business structures is that the system will provide that level of competition in areas of maximum profitability that will undermine the whole thing and mean that there is a difficulty in access to justice. I hope that what the Government are proposing will mean that not only is that examined carefully, but that we have a constant monitoring role. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) and his Committee will play a part in ensuring access to justice for many of our constituents. I am talking not only about those in rural areas but about minority communities within urban areas. Some suburban areas are also remarkable for their lack of legal advice facilities—they include some unexpected places where, by definition of the postcode, it is simply assumed that people have lots of money and can afford to go to expensive practitioners or to the nearest city for advice. As we all know, that is far from the case for all people. Lastly, I turn to the amendment on notaries tabled by the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Djanogly). I do not have much to add to what he has said on the issue and I am interested in the Minister's reply. I simply put on record a caution about notaries public. This is occasioned by a lady who came to my advice surgery in Wincanton just two weeks ago and who was appalled about something. She is a grandmother who has occasion, for reasons that I need not go into, to take her grandchildren across national boundaries on planes to visit their parents, from whom they are currently separated. She found that in order to gain entry to the United States of America she required a notary's affidavit to establish that she had the right of care for those children. She compared notes with a French citizen who happened to be behind her in the queue and found that in France the affidavit was provided for free by the mayor or the mairie in the village or town from which that person came. She had to pay £50 for that certificate, and will have to pay £50 every time she makes the trip. That is a substantial fee for simply rubber-stamping a piece of paper drawn up by the person making the application. Are there sufficient numbers of notaries public across the country? Can they justify the fees? Would competition in this area be a good thing? In any case, should we have some system in our municipalities that provides for others to swear declarations of that kind rather than rely on a notary public, because there is often limited access to them in many parts of the country? I leave all that for the Minister to ponder. I dare say that it is not entirely relevant to the hon. Gentleman's amendment, but I thought that it was a good point to make now, because if it makes a change in the arrangements for the notary public, it will have been worth while.