Meeting of the Parliament 21 May 2014
I am on the Finance Committee, which looked at the bill’s financial memorandum. It seems to me that there are three major mysteries and a few minor mysteries about it.
First, there will be a loss of fee income, but we are told that it will have a negligible effect. Secondly, there will be an increase in the sheriff court workload, but again, there will be a negligible effect from that. Thirdly, there will be a big reduction in the legal aid budget, but for no obvious reason.
On fee income, we are told in paragraph 75 of the financial memorandum that 80 per cent of personal injury cases will go to the sheriff court. The Association of Personal Injury Lawyers thinks that the figure will be higher than that, at 96 per cent. If we stick with the figure of 80 per cent, in accordance with a freedom of information request by the association it seems that £1.1 million will be lost in fee income through that change, because much less is charged in the sheriff court than is charged in the Court of Session. The Finance Committee wanted to know whether the result of that would be an overall increase in court fees. Obviously, there would be concerns about that.
The Finance Committee also felt that there is a mystery about the increase in sheriff court workload. The bill team told us that there would be no increase in sitting days at the sheriff court, but the intention behind creating the £150,000 threshold, of course, is to remove a substantial part of the Court of Session’s business. Therefore, there seems to be a contradiction.
Margaret Mitchell described in great detail the pressure that the sheriff court is already under: it is overcrowded, there are closures to come and we are told that cases that are expected to last for four days are rarely heard on consecutive days. In addition, the reduction in the number of cases, which the cabinet secretary told us about today, does not correspond to the amount of judicial time spent. The Association of Personal Injury Lawyers made the point that the 36 per cent reduction in the number of cases that has been flagged up by the Government is mainly from debt or repossession cases that are usually undefended.
Many complex cases will transfer to the Court of Session. I was told very recently of two medical negligence cases in the Court of Session that have two judges and three to five weeks to be heard. That kind of case will transfer to the Court of Session. There is therefore a great mystery about the workload of the Court of Session and how that will be managed.
The other mystery, of course, is to do with the legal aid savings. We were told that a lot of that is to come from a 50 per cent reduction in use of counsel, but the cabinet secretary said today that it is very rare that sanction for counsel is refused in the sheriff court. He was very reassuring about concerns that were raised by, for example, Clydeside Action on Asbestos and by people in my constituency who have claims for asbestos harm. He said that they would get counsel, but a lot of the savings from the legal aid budget are because of cases not having counsel any more. Over and above that, of course, is the fact that most costs are recovered and are not in any case put against the legal aid budget. There is therefore a great mystery around the savings on the legal aid budget, and the committee was very concerned about the fact that the bill team could not answer our questions about that.
I think that I have not very long left.