Hansard

Presiding Officer, I apologise to you and to other members for my late arrival in the chamber this afternoon. Suffice it to say that travelling down from Orkney last night and this morning proved somewhat challenging.

I add my thanks to the committee for its work in producing the report and to the organisations and individuals whose evidence informed it. The report is a very welcome contribution to a debate that is not new. The deficiencies and gaps in the provision of legal aid, which are exacerbated by a complex and often inaccessible system, are challenges that the Government has known about for many years. Indeed, an independent strategic review in 2018 made a number of recommendations for systemic changes to legal aid, but those changes have not been realised.

Various Government task forces, such as the legal aid remuneration project and research analysis group, have been designed to address the challenges, but work has clearly stagnated, which prompted the Law Society of Scotland to pull out of the group in 2024, as it had lost confidence in the task force’s ability to deliver its objectives.

The committee is justified in expressing real disappointment that legislative reforms have not been pursued in this parliamentary session. The minister explained some of the rationale for that, but, given the severity of the access crisis and the long-standing nature of the problems, that is regrettable.

Legal aid deserts have been a central concern of the committee, and that concern has been echoed by the Law Society, the Scottish Human Rights Commission and the Human Rights Consortium Scotland in their evidence. Indeed, my Orkney Islands constituency is frequently cited as an example of a legal aid desert, with Scottish Legal Aid Board data suggesting that there have been no private solicitors in the islands staffing court or police duty plans in recent years, as referred to by Ariane Burgess. Other rural and island communities are similarly impacted.

Although I appreciate that mechanisms are in place to allow solicitors to travel and work across Scotland to provide legal aid, it is simply not sustainable for fewer and fewer solicitors to be covering ever-increasing areas of ground. What is more, the lack of local legal aid provision can compromise the quality of support that is received. That is not a criticism of solicitors, but it is an inevitable consequence of a lack of familiarity.

Law Society analysis from 2022 suggests that 139 of the most deprived communities in Scotland share just 29 civil legal aid firms between them and that there are no civil legal aid firms at all in 122 of those 139 areas.

SLAB research suggests that, since 2014, the most significant decreases in local authority legal aid-funded services have been in rural and island communities, with a 67 per cent decrease in Orkney and a 100 per cent decrease in Shetland. Those shortages reflect significant geographical inequalities and severely compromise access to justice for some of the most vulnerable people in our society. Access to legal aid cannot continue to represent a postcode lottery. The committee is right to identify it as an issue on which urgent action is long overdue.

Patricia Thom, the president of the Law Society of Scotland, rightly emphasised that the current fee system is making it difficult to attract younger solicitors, and she told the committee that, unless the situation improves, we face a “retirement cliff edge” in future. The Government’s commitment to recommencing fee-reviewed planning is therefore welcome and it will be important for Parliament to be kept updated as that work progresses.

Eligibility criteria, particularly financial, are also integral to improving access to legal aid, as Katy Clark and Ariane Burgess have identified. Scottish Women’s Aid and other organisations have highlighted the harm of means testing for eligibility in cases of domestic abuse, where victims who might be subject to economic and financial abuse are being excluded from support. Financial eligibility thresholds will have to be key to any review of potential reforms, considering the need for exceptions in civil protection order cases. Consumer Scotland has also made it clear that embedding the user voice in any reforms needs to be an urgent priority if we are to address unmet need and ensure that vulnerable groups are being heard and represented.

The review represents a vital first step in the much-needed reform of our legal aid system, but it must be followed by urgent action. I again commend the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee for setting us on the road to that reform. The convener is absolutely right that, if we find ourselves in the same position at the end of the next session of Parliament, it will be unforgivable.

I thank the committee for allowing the debate to take place, and I look forward to hearing members’ contributions.