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Criminal Defence Service (Contribution Orders) Regulations 2009

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness and the noble Lord for their contributions and helpful questions. It is right, with a new scheme such as this, that questions should be asked of it. The answer is that we will know the result only once the scheme has been tried. I can say that the early-adopter phase will be used to test the processes and I assure the House that, for obvious reasons, we will want to continue closely to monitor the impact of these pretty fundamental changes. Towards the end of next year a full review will take place of how this has worked out. When I thank the noble Lord and the noble Baroness, though, it is not just for the comments that they have made but because they expressed support in principle for the idea that those who are convicted of offences in the Crown Court and who can afford to pay should have to pay some part, if not all, of their costs, so that the precious legal fund that the noble Baroness talked about can be spent on those who really need the help that it provides. I shall try to deal with some of the important questions that have been asked. The noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, rightly pointed out that the previous experience in this field has not been entirely happy, to say the least. One of the reasons for that is that the costs rather overwhelmed the amount of money that came in. We have been very conscious indeed in creating this new scheme to try to make sure that that does not happen. Of course, there will be start-up costs. We know that there will always be some cost in running this, but we are as sure as we can be at this stage—before the early adopters and before the scheme comes into force—that this is a better scheme and better planned. It also has more chance of satisfying the principle that we all agree with, which is that convicted defendants should, if they possibly can, pay for their criminal trials. That is in the same way as happens now in the magistrates’ courts, which saves the Legal Aid Fund a considerable amount of money. The noble Baroness made some interesting points about the HCCs; perhaps I may come to those at the end. Both the noble Lord and the noble Baroness asked about the number of unrepresented defendants and whether that has risen in the magistrates’ court since the new scheme came in some years ago. I do not have the figures, but I will of course write to them. However, defendants appear unrepresented for a number of reasons and perhaps I may say a word or two about that important point. We believe that introducing the new scheme will not have an unduly adverse effect on the number of unrepresented defendants, but it is something that we shall be looking at closely. It is perhaps worth noting that under the old Crown Court means-testing scheme, abolished in 2001 when the threshold for income contributions was lower than we now propose, only 0.3 per cent of defendants appeared unrepresented. Current figures from Her Majesty’s Courts Service suggest that about 0.05 per cent of defendants appearing before the Crown Court represent themselves, equating to a figure of about 45 defendants out of a total defendant population of some 90,000. As I say, defendants appear unrepresented for a number of reasons, and we will use the early adopter phase to test out our belief that the introduction of means-testing will not lead to a significantly greater number. The noble Baroness asked how much would be saved, and the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, gave the estimate—and it is, of course, an estimate. We think that £50 million per year is a reasonable estimate. Perhaps I might pray in aid that we thought when the magistrates’ court scheme came in that we would by now be saving about £80 million per year, which is about the figure that we are presently saving. We think that that £50 million is a cautious figure. The noble Baroness asked about the costs of expert witnesses. We are looking very hard indeed at those costs, as part of the quite controversial consultation paper which we put out in August. We agree that the costs of experts across the field are too high and take up too much of a finite budget. We have set out the options in that consultation paper. The noble Lord asked about the modelling scheme. We believe that that is based on a wide variety of surveys undertaken over a considerable period and that those data sources are fairly comprehensive and reliable. The same modelling was used to develop the magistrates’ court means-testing scheme. I must straightaway put right a mistake that I have made; I am grateful to those advising me, as the savings in the magistrates’ court scheme have not been £80 million per year as I said, but £80 million in total since it began. That £80 million total is in the three years that the magistrates’ court scheme has been in operation. I am sorry to have misled the House, even if it was only temporarily.