A cross-party parliamentary group on access to justice has produced guidance to support new MPs when they are approached by constituents with legal problems.
In a foreword to the guide, solicitor-general Sarah Sackman KC said: ‘As MPs, we are regularly called upon to help constituents with their legal problems, including issues such as immigration, housing and eviction, access to health and social care services, and challenging local authority decision-making.
‘For most first-time MPs (such as myself) and their casework teams, this will be a new experience, and in some cases potentially quite daunting. The issues you tackle in casework will inform other aspects of your work as an MP, such as the questions you post to minister and issues that you campaign on.’
The guide includes advice on how to set up an MP surgery, suggested language to clarify the limitations of such surgeries, the different types of legal support organisations, the legal aid structure, a list of advice agencies and online resources for welfare benefits, family law disputes, employment issues and small claims in the country court.
A directory, endorsed by the attorney general’s pro bono committee, has also been produced for MPs looking to signpost constituents to free legal and other advice.
The guidance was unveiled at a reception in parliament yesterday to mark the start of Pro Bono Week.
The event also served as the parliamentary launch of the 'Take Your MP To Work' campaign, a joint initiative by Young Legal Aid Lawyers, Legal Aid Practitioners Group and Migrants Organise.
Young Legal Aid Lawyers co-chair Isaac Abraham, a solicitor at Islington Law Centre, urged new MPs to travel to the ‘legal aid coalface’.
Abraham said: ‘Come to where I work on any given day, for example, and you will find lawyers providing vital representation to those experiencing the sharpest ends of our society. People fighting for their right to live in habitable home. Parents challenging the exclusion of their children from education. Individuals who have fled persecution trying to establish a new life for themselves.
‘A trip to the legal aid coalface will show you what more we could do for those that we serve, if only the system would allow us to. Decades of intentional underinvestment... mean that legal aid provision is on its knees. In many areas legal aid provision does not exist, and in those where it does it is close to collapse. This is despite a huge increase in demand for legal help and representation, driven by the crisis we face in the cost of living and housing, among other things.
'At risk of stating the obvious, there is no access to justice without access. Increasingly, for many, there simply is no access, meaning there can be no justice.’
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