Banbury MP addresses 'lefty lawyer' jibes at law lecture

Ms Prentis, who as Attorney General sits in Rishi Sunak’s Cabinet and advises ministers of the law, warned of the dangers of lawyers ‘confusing our clients’ interests with our own’ – saying it was ‘bad for practice’.

But she distanced herself from language like ‘lefty lawyers’, used by the Prime Minister to dismiss Labour Party leader and barrister Keir Starmer in the spring.

“There’s nothing remarkable in the fact that we on the government side of the argument see the same names on the other side litigating against us again and again,” she said on Tuesday afternoon, as she gave the Oxfordshire High Sheriff’s annual Law Lecture.

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The former Civil Service barrister said: “I spent my professional career in litigation against these firms and I have a deep respect for some of their lawyers.

“But there are undoubtedly lawyers who are in private practice who are activists.”

Ms Prentis added: “Law is, of course, a service industry. Our professional duty is to represent the interests of those who instruct us.

“But we live in a world where politics seems to be increasingly part of our identities."

Without naming any particular lawyers but in an apparent reference to groups like Jolyon Maugham KC's campaigning Good Law Project, the minister said: “I do think that there’s a risk that lawyers are encouraged to solicit business by aligning themselves very closely with their clients' values, especially when the growth of crowdfunding means that it’s now quite easy for hopeless but emotive claims to be issued.

“Confusing our clients' interests with our own is bad for practice.

“It risks undermining the objectivity that is key to our task and it also risks damaging our legal system.

“We mustn’t create in the public the sense that the law is a continuation of politics by other means, something which can be wielded against our enemies to oppress them.”

Attorney General Victoria Prentis MP was giving the annual law lecture at the Examination Schools Picture: Oxford Mail (Image: Oxford Mail)

Her lecture in Oxford came as the Supreme Court heard arguments over the Government’s policy of sending some asylum seekers to Rwanda.

As Ms Prentis was on her feet, lawyers for the United Nations refugee agency told the most senior judges in the land that there were ‘basic and fundamental defects’ in the Rwandan system. The Home Office is challenging a ruling by the Court of Appeal in June that its deal with the African nation was unlawful.

The Supreme Court case was not referenced explicitly at Tuesday’s lecture in Oxford. However, she was asked about the shortage of Legal Aid solicitors able to do immigration law work.

Mark Goldring of Oxford-based charity Asylum Welcome told Ms Prentis: “We support asylum seekers who desperately struggle to get Legal Aid not because they’re not entitled to it, but because there are not enough Legal Aid [solicitors] available.

“We are literally chasing right across the country to try and find Legal Aid solicitors who can take on cases.”

The Attorney General acknowledged the ‘gaps’ where there were none or relatively few solicitors’ firms providing specialist Legal Aid services. She said the government had ‘upped the rates’ for lawyers doing Legal Aid immigration work.

Victoria Prentis, the Attorney General, took questions from the audience after giving the annual law lecture at the Examination Schools. She went on to give a Q&A to schoolchildren Picture: Oxford Mail (Image: Oxford Mail)

Last month, the Ministry of Justice confirmed that Legal Aid rates for some immigration work would be increased by 15 per cent, as part of changes introduced in the Illegal Migration Act.

However, the changes were criticised by some in the legal sector. Emma Vincent Miller of campaigners Public Law Project said the increase was ‘desperately needed at a time when Legal Aid providers are at breaking point’.

But she added: “Increasing rates for Illegal Migration Act work alone represents the worst of sticking-plaster policymaking.” It created ‘perverse incentives’ to take on some types of immigration work, Ms Miller said.

Research by solicitors’ body The Law Society this summer found that two-thirds of the population of England and Wales do not have access to an immigration and asylum Legal Aid provider. The number of firms providing such services had fallen by 8.5 per cent since last year.