Post by nickd on Sept 8, 2011 23:33:20 GMT 1
Government ministers are paid to scrutinize a bill in the committee stages; - why are they only paying lip service to the process?
From what I've seen of it the Legal Aid, Sentencing & Punishment of Offender's Bill scrutiny committee has been an absolutely farcical exercise in terms of responsibly going about what it has been tasked to do. I've watched a fair few scrutiny and accountability committee and what strikes me is how the whole process of scrutiny has been allowed to become a division between two opposing sides; namely the coalition v labour.
I'm not being political here, but I am angry with our coalition government and understandably this makes me want to attack the way they are going about thinks.
The whole sorry background to the progression of this bill through Parliament has, as far as the voting goes, been nothing but deplorable.
Take Ken Clarke's role in all of this.
No doubt about it, Ken's all fired up and seemingly passionate in his belief that we have to reform the legal aid system. Looking at him you'd think he would ensure a presence throughout.
But if you rewind to the 2nd reading of the bill, he was there at the start and probably towards the end at voting time. He wasn't even on the scrutiny committee!
and where was he when all the intelligent debate went on throughout the afternoon of the 2nd reading?
I'd hazard a guess
He was probably having a kip, just like he did when president Obama attended London and gave a passionate speech in Westminster Cathedral. Ken nodded off when Obama looked to the audience as he talked about issues concerning social justice.
And what about our Prime Minister who launched the bill from 10, Downing Street.
He was big on crime and punishment and took questions from the press. Strangely he didn't get around to saying to much about the legal aid part of the bill; - he had an important dinner engagement to go to.
Could it be Mr Cameron was a bit nervous about someone asking him too many questions which may have embarrassed him?
Like how is it that Government was being a bit backward in coming forwards to requests about how much his brother Alex Cameron QC earned out of legal aid.
It was later disclosed that Cameron QC has earned £1.3 million pounds in high cost criminal cases; - an area hardly affected by Government's cuts to legal aid, they affect in the main only the civil sector. The most savage cuts of all being in social welfare law; it's used to fund vital advice agencies which face cuts averaging an almighty 67%
Surely our Prime Minister should have given legal aid a mention; - seemingly his 'prior engagement' was more important.
Then we have our legal aid minister
An ex-city corporate lawyer with international firm SJ Berwin. He's been heavily criticised as sticking to script throughout all of these debates. He rarely answers a question; just reverts to what the party line is and has rarely shown any inclination to waiver. Mr Djanogly has shown little regard for the 5,000 responses to the Ministry of Justice consultation which showed massive lack of support for the bill from many eminent sources.
It's also true to say that Mr. Djanogly has got a number of key facts wrong in his enthusiasm to promote his bill, we'll be saying more about this later.
Why are these ministers failing to consider their duty to ensure people have access to justice.
At the national pro-bono event in March 2011, Mr Djanogly was condemned by the legal press as getting himself 'all tied up in knots' over what he was saying.