Unless they are unusually concentrated in marginal constituencies, the votes of UK solicitors are unlikely to swing the outcome of the general election in three weeks’ time. However, the main parties’ manifestos have much to say about the law (especially where it relates to crime, human rights and civil liberty), with significant differences between them. Some clear water is also apparent between approaches to issues of professional concern to solicitors.

One way for the legal world’s floating voters to judge the manifestos is to see how closely they map to the Law Society’s own. The Delivering Justice manifesto, published earlier this year, calls for all parties to commit to a total of 31 policy proposals. They fall under four main headings: the rule of law and access to justice; defending human rights; better law-making and (last but not least) ‘a strong and independent legal services sector’.

Many of the Law Society’s proposals make it into the Labour and Conservative manifestos, albeit in general terms (the Liberal Democrats’ manifesto was due to appear yesterday, the day after the Gazette went to press). However, there will be several disappointments.

One of the biggest, though not unexpected, is the lack of commitment to legal aid. The Law Society’s manifesto calls for commitments to maintain eligibility at current levels, a ‘new covenant’ with the legal profession on services, for government to consider a ‘polluter pays’ policy, under which the originators of failed prosecutions reimburse legal aid costs, and for each new piece of legislation to include a legal aid impact assessment.

However, given the public spending climate, and in a week in which three former MPs won the right to legal aid to face charges relating to expenses claims, defending the system is not high on the electoral agenda.

In a section dealing with both crime and immigration, Labour’s manifesto promises ‘to find greater savings in legal aid and the courts system – increasing the use of successful "virtual courts", which move from arrest, to trial, to sentencing in hours rather than weeks or months’.

The Conservatives, whose shadow justice secretary, Dominic Grieve QC, is already on record as condemning the government’s legal aid policies as ‘woefully inadequate to tackle the deep problems in the way legal aid has been run under this government’, reveal few details. The Conservative manifesto, published as the Gazette went to press, says: ‘We will carry out a fundamental review of legal aid to make it work more efficiently, and examine ways of bringing in alternative sources of funding.’

On human rights, the two main parties and the LibDems have carved out distinctive positions. Delivering Justice calls for all parties to commit to ‘supporting the principles enshrined in the Human Rights Act’. All parties agree with the carefully worded commitment – Labour by upholding the act itself. Labour’s manifesto says explicitly: ‘We will not repeal or resile from it.’ The LibDems’ manifesto is likely to make a similar commitment.

As expected, the Conservatives take a different tack: ‘To protect our freedoms from state encroachment and to encourage greater social responsibility, we will replace the Human Rights Act with a UK Bill of Rights.’

Big brotherThe manifestos also offer distinctive approaches to the ‘big brother’ questions of state powers. The Law Society’s call for ‘a national debate’ about the proper balance to be struck between surveillance and privacy seems not to have impressed the main parties. Labour bluntly defends the trends of the past 13 years: ‘We will continue to make full use of CCTV and DNA technology: new weapons deployed to strengthen our fight against crime.’ The national ID scheme also figures in the manifesto, with the promise that ‘the new biometric ID scheme which already covers foreign nationals will be offered to an increasing number of British citizens but will not be compulsory for them.’

By contrast, the Conservatives go considerably further than the Law Society’s manifesto in launching a forthright attack on ‘Labour’s database state’. Pledges include the scrapping of ID cards, the National Identity Register and the Contactpoint database of children.

The Tory manifesto also describes as ‘unacceptable’ the indefinite retention of innocent people’s DNA. Instead, it says ‘we will collect the DNA of all existing prisoners, those under state supervision who have been convicted of an offence, and anyone convicted of a serious recordable offence’. People on the DNA database who have been wrongly accused of a minor crime will have an automatic right to have their DNA withdrawn.

Other Tory civil liberties pledges – expected to be echoed by the LibDems – include steps to cut back intrusive power of entry into homes, curtailing councils’ use of surveillance powers granted under anti-terrorism laws, and requiring privacy impact assessments of ‘any proposal that involves data collection or sharing’.

The LibDems, where shadow home secretary Chris Huhne is in effect holding the justice portfolio following the announced departure of David Howarth, were expected to make an all-out attack on Labour’s human rights record. A recent policy statement says: ‘Labour’s catastrophic mismanagement of the criminal justice system has led to prisons bursting at the seams; the creation of over 3,600 new criminal offences since 1997; and an unprecedented criminalisation of our children. Instead of using prison and sentencing as a proxy for real action on crime, the Liberal Democrats will use alternative measures that are proven to reduce reoffending. These include community justice panels, the nationwide use of restorative justice and rigorous community punishments as an alternative to short-term prison sentences.’

The LibDems’ manifesto was expected to announce a freedom bill ‘to restore and protect our most important liberties’. Like the Tories, the LibDems ‘will scrap expensive and unnecessary ID cards; remove innocent people from the criminal DNA database; restore the right to protest and freedom of speech; and restore other vital freedoms. We will protect people’s privacy by strengthening data protection laws and stopping unnecessary state intervention in our lives’.

Understandably, the Law Society’s portfolio of measures to create a strong and independent legal sector have less obvious manifesto appeal. Delivering Justice calls on all parties to commit to ‘a proportionate regulatory regime’, consider the abolition of referral fees and engage in a debate about the future of home information packs.

No HIP replacement?Despite all parties’ committing to more home ownership, the home information pack, which the Law Society’s manifesto says ‘has not assisted the homebuying process in any substantial way and has simply created extra expense’, does not merit a mention in either Labour or Conservative manifestos.

On referral fees, the Tories are understood to be loath to block a mechanism that has emerged from the free market. However, Henry Bellingham, the Conservatives’ justice spokesman, has already said it would review the new road traffic accident claims system. None of the main parties allude specifically to another Law Society concern, the speed of the move towards alternative business structures under the Legal Services Act. Delivering Justice warns: ‘There is concern that the imminence of the Legal Services Board’s target date for the creation of the first alternative business structures means that potentially significant problems may be overlooked.’ It calls for all parties to ensure that the implementation of ABSs ‘has a beneficial effect on access to justice and that a level playing field is achieved’.

However, the parties seem more engaged with the Law Society’s policy proposals for good governance and better law-making, which include more transparent and accountable law-making, extending pre-legislative review and implementing post-legislative review.

Labour promises a new right to government information and a new right to petition the House of Commons to trigger debates on issues of ‘significant public concern’.

The Conservatives likewise offer ‘a powerful new right to public data’ and say that any petition securing 100,000 signatures will be eligible for formal debate in parliament. The party’s manifesto also promises a new public reading stage for bills, to give the public an opportunity to comment online on proposed legislation.

The Law Society is also likely to welcome the Conservative commitment to create an independent office of tax simplification. This manifesto commitment echoes the call for all parties to commit to ‘creating a permanent tax advisory body to recommend reform and simplification of existing law, monitor its application and scrutinise new legislation as it proceeds through the parliamentary process’.

None of the main parties, however, seems ready to go along with the Law Society’s proposals for fixed dates for the pre-budget report and budget.

In the context of Europe (barely mentioned in Labour’s manifesto), the Tories promise a UK Sovereignty Bill ‘to make it clear that ultimate authority stays in this country’ and to negotiate for the return to UK jurisdiction of powers relating to the Charter of Fundamental Rights, on criminal justice and on social and employment legislation.

The Law Society also calls for all parties to commit to the continued independence of the Judicial Appointments Commission. This does not appear in either manifesto.

The Law Society also called for a ‘reform and repeal bill’ to remove laws that have become outdated, unnecessary or burdensome. This does not figure in either Labour’s or (more likely) the Conservatives’ manifesto.

But perhaps it is fortunate for the Society’s political independence that no single party has adopted the Delivering Justice proposals wholesale. Solicitors, like the rest of the electorate, will have to make up their own minds. Michael Cross is a freelance journalist

  • See the Law Society’s response to the manifestos