What shall we expect from Simon Hughes as a Minister? More pious lectures…

This week Simon Hughes MP set out his priorities in his new job as Justice Minister.

In an interview with the Independent he accused the legal professions of looking “like early 20th century or late 19th century Britain” unless they fixed their social mobility and diversity problems.

He makes a fair point.

Too many established professions don’t reflect modern day Britain.

Recently published figures from the Council of Europe show that the UK is 4^th bottom in Europe for gender diversity amongst judges.

Alan Milburn’s  report last year into Social Mobility revealed that over two thirds of senior barristers are privately educated compared to only 7% of the general public.

These issues matter but Mr Hughes chooses to glide over the fact that, by propping up the Coalition, his party are making the problem worse.

By backing Justice Secretary Chris Grayling’s universally-criticised changes to legal aid, Hughes backs cuts which will choke the life out of the very parts of the legal professions that offer more opportunities to women, ethnic minorities and those from less well-off backgrounds.

Under their plans it is the advice and law centres, smaller specialist firms and legal aid practitioners that will suffer most.

If Hughes is serious about social mobility, his first act as a new Justice Minister should be to review the effects of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act and the current proposals for criminal legal aid on recruitment to and progression through the professions.

Ministers should also stop repeating inaccurate figures about barristers’ incomes.  Shailesh Vara, the legal aid minister, maintains that the average income of a legal aid practitioner is £84,000.

But cross-examined by the Chairman of the Bar and the Chairman of the Criminal Bar Association at the all-Party Legal Aid Parliamentary Group this week (not a fair fight really) it emerged that this excludes the lowest paid, but includes VAT and chambers expenses. Adjusting for these reduces that average by more than half.

Simon Hughes went on to say “we still have a legal profession which is significantly dominated by white, middle-aged men…there are almost no women at the top end….and very little ethnic diversity.”

He could have been talking about the Liberal Democrats, of course, whose Deputy Leader he was until taking up his government post.

A political party that has no black or minority ethnic MPs and only seven out of 57 women MPs.

Now he is a minister in a Government that is all but abolishing legal aid for the most vulnerable, restricting judicial review, expanding secret courts and curtailing human rights.

On Tuesday this week Hughes and all but seven of his Lib Dem colleagues voted with the Conservatives to privatise the probation service and leave the likes of Serco and G4S to supervise violent and dangerous offenders

Can we expect any more from Hughes at the MoJ than he delivered as Deputy Leader or other Lib Dem ministers have in Government?  Probably not.  But expect more of the pious lectures that are his leitmotif.

Andy Slaughter is a Shadow Justice Minister