:00:11. > :00:15.racing interval of access to justice under threat because of radical
:00:15. > :00:21.changes to legal aid? There was better news for the British economy
:00:21. > :00:27.this week. No triple-dip recession. But is the Welsh economy feeling the
:00:27. > :00:37.benefit? And would more ethnic diversity in public life combat
:00:37. > :00:42.
:00:42. > :00:49.Wales Report, where we look at the issues of lives throughout Wales and
:00:49. > :00:54.question some of the decisions. Tonight we start with the right of
:00:54. > :01:01.every individual to access justice. The UK has one of the most expensive
:01:01. > :01:06.legal aid regimes in the world, �2 billion a year. Ministers believe
:01:06. > :01:10.that is not defensible when pressure on Government budgets is so intense.
:01:10. > :01:15.Legal aid is being removed from entire cases of civil law including
:01:15. > :01:25.some family cases in order to make cuts. Ministers insist it is right,
:01:25. > :01:31.
:01:31. > :01:38.despite protests from senior Justice is supposed to be accessible
:01:38. > :01:42.to all, rich or poor. And in the past, each year, 25,000 people
:01:42. > :01:46.across Wales have used legal aid to help them pay for advice and
:01:46. > :01:53.lawyers. That huge cuts to the legal aid budget, which came into effect
:01:53. > :01:59.earlier this month, will change all that. Legal aid no longer applies to
:01:59. > :02:03.entire areas of civil law, including some family and medical negligence
:02:03. > :02:07.cases, and lawyers here in Wales are warning that could have serious
:02:07. > :02:15.consequences, not just for the legal profession but crucially for people
:02:15. > :02:20.who need financial help in accessing justice. People like the Weaver
:02:20. > :02:26.family from Bridgend. Emily Weaver is now 26. She was born with
:02:26. > :02:30.cerebral palsy but when she was two doctors failed to spot that a tube
:02:31. > :02:35.training fluid from her brain had blocked. The difference between
:02:35. > :02:39.Emily before and Emily after that happened was heartbreaking. After
:02:39. > :02:46.the incident, it was literally like bringing home some one who was
:02:46. > :02:54.lined, death and like a plank of wood. -- lined and death and like a
:02:54. > :03:02.plank of wood. Legal aid funded the family's medical negligence claim
:03:02. > :03:10.which gave the family equipment and help for the rest of her life.
:03:10. > :03:16.is now able to have everything she needs. She needs sensory equipment
:03:16. > :03:22.and sensory programmes. We were not able to give her any of that
:03:22. > :03:28.before. What would you have done without legal aid? I do not think we
:03:28. > :03:36.could have done anything. I do not think anyone could understand how
:03:36. > :03:42.traumatic being a parent and care of somebody like Emily is. Every day
:03:42. > :03:48.you are living a nightmare. So legally, coming along at that time
:03:48. > :03:53.am a was our saviour and Emily's saviour. Now the changes to legal
:03:53. > :03:57.aid in civil law are in place, next the UK governments want to reform
:03:57. > :04:03.legal aid and the criminal law. Barristers across Wales have said
:04:03. > :04:06.enough is enough. This week, the Wales and Chester circuit of
:04:06. > :04:12.barristers voted unanimously to strike at the UK Government's
:04:12. > :04:17.proposals. The justice system in Wales is in danger. The effect of
:04:17. > :04:22.these cuts to Wales in particular would be absolutely devastating.
:04:22. > :04:27.Freedom of choice will go. The provision of legal services in Wales
:04:27. > :04:32.will be very much reduced. People will be denied access to justice. We
:04:32. > :04:37.take this very seriously. This is not a hollow threat. This is a
:04:37. > :04:40.threat that the Government will see coming into force sooner rather than
:04:41. > :04:45.later. So in future, will more and more people without legal aid or
:04:45. > :04:51.money for a lawyer end up being forced to come to court themselves
:04:51. > :04:55.to argue their case? The bar Council certainly thinks so. They have even
:04:55. > :04:59.issued a new guide to representing yourself in court. It is full of
:04:59. > :05:05.handy hints and tips about what to bring to court, including key
:05:05. > :05:10.documents and highlighter pens. It even tells me to dress for success.
:05:10. > :05:12.And it does have quite a lot of information about the law in it, but
:05:12. > :05:22.what it cannot give anyone is a legal qualification or years of
:05:22. > :05:27.experience. For parents like John Weaver, the idea of DIY justice is a
:05:27. > :05:31.nonstarter. Could you possibly have represented yourself? It is hard
:05:31. > :05:38.work for any solicitor to represent us in a complex case like Emily's
:05:38. > :05:43.was. No way I could have done that. Fighting for Emily on a day-to-day
:05:43. > :05:47.basis is one thing. Standing in court and trying to do that is
:05:47. > :05:56.another. So without legal aid, without the solicitors that we used,
:05:56. > :06:00.we could not have had the result but we have got. In a statement, the UK
:06:00. > :06:10.jail and -- the UK Government's justice minister defended the
:06:10. > :06:20.
:06:20. > :06:24.be a turbulent time for the legal system. There may well be short-term
:06:24. > :06:29.savings, but for a growing number of professional legal bodies and
:06:29. > :06:36.families like the weavers, the long-term effects will be nothing
:06:36. > :06:41.short of devastating. What do you think of the changes? In a word,
:06:41. > :06:49.unethical. At the very least I am very disappointed. At the most I am
:06:49. > :06:57.very angry. To attack the most vulnerable people in society, people
:06:57. > :07:05.who already have a great disadvantage...
:07:05. > :07:12.The controversy surrounding the cases was very much in evidence at
:07:12. > :07:15.yesterday's Welsh Conservative Party conference in Swansea. Andrew Taylor
:07:15. > :07:25.insisted on asking the Justice Secretary, Chris Grayling, a
:07:25. > :07:25.
:07:25. > :07:33.question after his speech. I would like to tell the Welsh people about
:07:33. > :07:41.the losses that are likely to come about as a result of his law
:07:41. > :07:44.reforms. We are having to take tough and difficult decisions and I know
:07:44. > :07:49.different to the Ministry of Justice are having to take tough and
:07:49. > :07:53.difficult decisions, so we are making changes to legal aid, to the
:07:53. > :07:59.way we read our prisons, in our courts to bring down costs. There is
:07:59. > :08:02.no option. The alternative is the Labour way which is to carry on
:08:02. > :08:07.spending the money the same way, pass on huge debts to our children
:08:07. > :08:13.and leave the country in the kind of crisis we are seeing in other parts
:08:13. > :08:17.of Europe, and I am not prepared to do that.
:08:17. > :08:22.You do not need to be a lip reader to see that Mr Taylor was not
:08:22. > :08:28.entirely convinced by that response. Joining me is a consultant solicitor
:08:28. > :08:32.advocate and a former member of the Law Society Council. The legal aid
:08:32. > :08:37.system is eye watering the expensive. It needs radical reform,
:08:37. > :08:42.and that is what you are getting. do not agree, nor do many other
:08:42. > :08:46.experts. If you go back to 1991, the last time a Government try to
:08:46. > :08:54.introduce price competitive tendering, it is what is going to
:08:54. > :08:59.affect solicitors and barristers, there were 1400 firms of solicitors.
:08:59. > :09:04.We are now down to far fewer than that and we are now going to be
:09:05. > :09:10.asked to reduce it in total to 400 firms of solicitors for the whole of
:09:10. > :09:17.England and the. And you more concerned about the impact on your
:09:17. > :09:21.profession than on people's ability to access justice? I think they go
:09:21. > :09:24.hand-in-hand. Access to Justice will be virtually impossible. Let's take
:09:24. > :09:31.two areas that are going to be badly affected. Industrial South Wales, as
:09:31. > :09:36.it was, is going to be one procurement area. There are 1.25
:09:36. > :09:40.million people living in that area. I suspect the number of firms
:09:40. > :09:43.servicing that area at the moment is somewhat over 40. It will come down
:09:43. > :09:53.to eight to cover all of those people and that whole area, and that
:09:53. > :09:56.
:09:56. > :10:03.system is going to be applied equally to rural areas. In my area
:10:03. > :10:09.there are 515,000 people in an area that covers 4500 square miles. At
:10:09. > :10:13.present, probably something in the region of 22 or 23 firms that do a
:10:13. > :10:18.measure of criminal legal aid work. That will come down to four. And the
:10:18. > :10:22.worst of this is that the client will not have a choice. You will not
:10:22. > :10:28.go to the solicitor you have had before. What will happen is you will
:10:28. > :10:34.go on an automated system which is replacing the call centre, and they
:10:34. > :10:38.will allocate you a provider. But what they are going to do now is
:10:38. > :10:43.literally sweep the legs from under the system, because you are going to
:10:43. > :10:49.find a lot of firms going to the wall, giving up, and there will not
:10:49. > :10:55.be access to justice. But ministers would come back and say again those
:10:55. > :11:01.who need it will have access to it. This reform is about stripping it
:11:01. > :11:05.away from those who do not really need. I do not agree. Let's have a
:11:05. > :11:11.look at the barristers who very sensibly issued a guide to people to
:11:11. > :11:15.do their own cases. That will happen. There will not be solicitors
:11:15. > :11:19.available. A lot of people will have to represent themselves. I applaud
:11:19. > :11:22.the bar Council for issuing the guide they have but I have to point
:11:22. > :11:26.out that quite a number of my clients are not able to read will
:11:26. > :11:31.stop a number of them would be absolutely flummoxed if they were
:11:31. > :11:35.put before a court and told to present their own case. How can the
:11:35. > :11:40.Government have an adversarial system when you are in a situation
:11:40. > :11:44.where one of the adversarial is does not have the appropriate weapon? It
:11:45. > :11:51.is like putting a person into a gunfight with a banana against a man
:11:51. > :11:54.with a machine gun. When will we see the practical results of what you
:11:54. > :12:01.say will happen when these changes go through? -- if these changes go
:12:01. > :12:05.through? I am told that the changes will be implemented in Dover. A lot
:12:05. > :12:11.of the firms will say, we cannot do it. And I agree with Andrew,
:12:11. > :12:16.rubbish. So the UK economy has afforded a
:12:16. > :12:21.triple-dip recession after recording 0.3% growth in the first three
:12:21. > :12:24.months of the year, according to the Office for National Statistics. One
:12:24. > :12:33.minister David Cameron says that the economy is healing, but does that
:12:33. > :12:39.apply to Wales, to? Figures show the people in Wales have the second
:12:39. > :12:43.lowest disposable income in the UK. Of course there have been difficult
:12:43. > :12:50.decisions but in Wales there are 39,000 more people in work and there
:12:50. > :12:54.were at the time of the election. There are 30,000 fewer people on out
:12:54. > :12:59.of work benefits. So it is healing. It does take time. Getting the
:12:59. > :13:04.deficit down is difficult. What welfare changes are about is trying
:13:04. > :13:09.to make sure people have access to a job. The best way out of poverty is
:13:09. > :13:13.work. The Labour way of doing things where you park people on incapacity
:13:13. > :13:17.benefit and you leave them there, never doing anything to help them,
:13:17. > :13:23.is wrong. We are spending sometimes up to 14,000 on one individual to
:13:23. > :13:27.help them find work, so this is the right thing to do. Labour tried to
:13:27. > :13:34.prove the point that you can just heel problems with benefits. You
:13:34. > :13:40.cannot. The way is to help people by helping them get work. A very
:13:40. > :13:43.forthright message from David Cameron, speaking yesterday. Joining
:13:43. > :13:52.us is Gerald Holtham, economic adviser to the Welsh Government.
:13:52. > :13:57.With me in the studio, Emma Watkins, director of CBI country. Is the
:13:57. > :14:01.economy healing, as David Cameron says it is? It is pretty flat still.
:14:01. > :14:09.It is tough out there that we can see a light at the end of the
:14:09. > :14:14.tunnel. 0.3% growth or 0.3% down is marginalise away. Businesses are
:14:14. > :14:19.rolling up their sleeves and working hard, but we can see a chink of
:14:19. > :14:24.light. Healing or not? I do not know. There is a great mystery about
:14:24. > :14:31.this which is there has been some rise in employment and some decline
:14:31. > :14:35.in unemployment despite the fact there has been virtually no growth.
:14:35. > :14:40.The economy is still more than 2% lower than it was before the last
:14:40. > :14:44.recession five years ago. We are producing less output now than we
:14:44. > :14:51.were five or six years ago and yet, as he rightly says, employment has
:14:51. > :14:54.gone up. Nobody quite knows why. One factor certainly is that it is
:14:54. > :15:00.low-grade employment. There are more people working part-time, people
:15:00. > :15:05.taking worst jobs, graduates working in McDonald's, all that sort of
:15:05. > :15:11.thing, and wages are down. Inflation is running faster than wages so
:15:11. > :15:15.instead of taking people through unemployment we are taking them
:15:15. > :15:20.through lower pay. How long can that continue? If growth does not pick
:15:20. > :15:24.up, will this decline in earnings go on or will that start to be a rise
:15:24. > :15:33.in an employment which has not happened so far? What are your
:15:33. > :15:42.members telling you about what is needed to Mack -- what is needed?
:15:42. > :15:45.Businesses are not yet interesting. But there is one key thing and that
:15:45. > :15:49.is an investment in infrastructure from UK Government and Welsh
:15:49. > :15:57.Government. We need to see action. We need investment in big industrial
:15:57. > :16:01.projects. We talked about the need to improve the M4 relief road. We
:16:01. > :16:05.also need to see a used in the construction market. For every
:16:05. > :16:11.pounds you spend in construction you get �2 84 back. That is a big
:16:11. > :16:14.return. And in terms of employment and jobs. It is all about the
:16:14. > :16:24.infrastructure but about delivering on it. Is the Welsh Government doing
:16:24. > :16:28.
:16:28. > :16:38.all it can to kick-start investment to Mack -- is the Government doing
:16:38. > :16:48.
:16:48. > :16:55.all it can to kick-start There are certain things that have
:16:55. > :17:02.already been done but they would like to do more. What about the way
:17:02. > :17:06.businesses are prepared to invest in their own industry? Is there an
:17:06. > :17:12.incentive or even a disincentive that would force them to do more
:17:12. > :17:18.than they are doing? The Government could temper actually increase the
:17:18. > :17:23.business allowances it gives to businesses to invest. Maybe it
:17:23. > :17:28.could temporarily raised, not lower, but raised the rate of corporation
:17:28. > :17:33.tax. People will have horror as if you say that but if you temporarily
:17:33. > :17:39.raised ate and offset it with generous investment allowances.
:17:39. > :17:45.That would give businesses in a pincer where they would have the
:17:45. > :17:50.incentive to bring investments forward. Why would business need to
:17:50. > :17:57.that kind of Carrick on stick approach? What is the reluctance
:17:57. > :18:04.when everyone knows what the benefits of investing are? I think
:18:04. > :18:08.that was a very good point about incentivise Asian. It is about
:18:08. > :18:16.prescribing investment or incentivising it. It is a lack of
:18:16. > :18:23.confidence. The difficult thing is that many of the levers like beyond
:18:23. > :18:28.the Welsh or a UK Government. There is a lot of stuff out there that is
:18:28. > :18:38.about with our control. If Germany sneezes and we will catch the flu.
:18:38. > :18:41.The figures this week were helpful. You might increase that confidence.
:18:41. > :18:49.Are you really in the position where you want people to start
:18:49. > :18:53.spending more money. The latest figures short that disposable
:18:53. > :18:58.spending en Wales is the second lowest of any part of the United
:18:58. > :19:06.Kingdom. Really can we expect people to spend more money to kick-
:19:06. > :19:11.start the economy? The answer is No. Not only our household incomes not
:19:11. > :19:17.rising, they are being squeezed. People still have a hundred and 40%
:19:17. > :19:23.of their annual income in debt. The household sector got to indebted.
:19:23. > :19:28.It is saving more now but it has a long way to go. That is not going
:19:28. > :19:32.to be the engine that drives the recovery in the near term. I think
:19:32. > :19:37.that is why we need some infrastructure investment,
:19:37. > :19:42.something else, to move the economy forward. Thank you both very much.
:19:42. > :19:52.Tomorrow brings the publication of a report into historical child
:19:52. > :19:57.abuse in children's homes in North Wales. Running parallel with the
:19:57. > :20:07.inquiry is a separate investigation following claims the Waterhouse
:20:07. > :20:07.
:20:07. > :20:17.Inquiry did not go far enough to uncover the truth. We can speak to
:20:17. > :20:23.our reporter who investigated this extensively in the 1990s. It is a
:20:23. > :20:28.sad story of historic child abuse in North Wales. Two reports will
:20:28. > :20:33.land on the desk of the Home Secretary and another will land on
:20:33. > :20:42.the desk of the chief constable. That will be the end of phase one
:20:42. > :20:46.of this report. The director general of the National crime
:20:46. > :20:54.agency has 27 very experienced police officers looking at how the
:20:54. > :20:58.police investigated it going back to the 70s and possibly the 60s.
:20:58. > :21:03.Most importantly they are listening to new allegations and we will hear
:21:03. > :21:09.tomorrow what that team has found. My understanding is that it is
:21:10. > :21:16.anything up to 150 people who have come forward. I understand a lot of
:21:16. > :21:19.new allegations are being made and the response will be to that. The
:21:19. > :21:29.chief constable will then have to decide whether or not to act on
:21:29. > :21:34.that report. Let us help viewers grew that a little more. There are
:21:34. > :21:39.two enquiries, I the overlapping each other? They do overlap but
:21:40. > :21:49.they are separate. One is looking at the police allegations. The
:21:49. > :21:53.other one is overseen by the High Court judge and they are looking
:21:53. > :21:59.into the Waterhouse inquiry which itself was a very long inquiry. It
:21:59. > :22:06.went on for three years, cost �30 million, took hundreds of witnesses
:22:06. > :22:10.and came to certain conclusions. It created some good things like the
:22:10. > :22:16.children's Commissioner for Wales. There were suggestions that perhaps
:22:16. > :22:20.it went outside children's homes in the private and public sector. The
:22:20. > :22:26.justice is looking at that aspect of it and they will be talking to
:22:26. > :22:30.one another otherwise there would not be much point. There is that
:22:30. > :22:35.you out there that what is going on is that the Waterhouse Inquiry is,
:22:35. > :22:41.in effect, being reopened. Not re- run but some of the questions are
:22:41. > :22:47.being asked again and new questions are being posed. Is that a fair
:22:47. > :22:53.summary? It is. It will take a long time. I spoke to the team this week
:22:53. > :23:02.and they were seeing the have a huge paper exercise. -- saying.
:23:02. > :23:07.They have to listen to what is new in addition to that. This programme
:23:07. > :23:13.made certain statements and brought things to their attention last
:23:13. > :23:18.November concerning the way that the privately run homes may have
:23:18. > :23:22.been concerned. I have given evidence do it so in a sense we are
:23:22. > :23:27.directly involved. Those are the sorts of things we will be
:23:27. > :23:32.listening to. At the moment, the timescale is open ended so we do
:23:32. > :23:39.not know when that is coming. us talk about culture, you mention
:23:39. > :23:48.it going back to the 70s and possibly 60s. How do you think the
:23:48. > :23:51.culture of listening and taking victims seriously has changed?
:23:51. > :23:57.Firstly at that time they were not believed, I am talking about young
:23:57. > :24:03.people who were trying to raise their voices and say that something
:24:03. > :24:07.was wrong. They were not being believed. Then the whistleblowers
:24:07. > :24:12.who tried to raise the subject on their behalf were not believed and
:24:12. > :24:19.then people like us who were trying to report were not believed. That
:24:19. > :24:24.is changing. The point of view now is that they have to be supported,
:24:24. > :24:30.now and if the process of law takes its place, there could be arrests.
:24:30. > :24:35.People could be brought to book, brought to justice. It does not
:24:35. > :24:40.mean to say they are guilty, they have a right to apply and that will
:24:40. > :24:44.take a long, long time. Everybody is now very anxious to make sure
:24:44. > :24:51.that these people who have had their lives destroyed in some cases
:24:51. > :24:57.are listened to and supported. That is where we go next. What can we
:24:57. > :25:01.expect to see in terms of action that is measurable? The chief
:25:01. > :25:11.constable will have no choice but to act on the recommendations of
:25:11. > :25:13.
:25:13. > :25:18.what the Palace will officers have found. -- Palu Eyl inquiry officers.
:25:18. > :25:28.Minority communities make up 7% of the population of Wales yet some
:25:28. > :25:36.feel areas still work to be done to improve their part in Welsh life.
:25:36. > :25:41.The Welsh Government has told us it is serious about their equality. A
:25:41. > :25:49.barrister with Civitas has been sharing her experiences as a Welsh
:25:49. > :25:54.Muslim living in the capital. Here is Mona Bayoumi. Historically, the
:25:54. > :25:57.UK has been one of the most progressive countries in Europe
:25:57. > :26:04.introducing provisions to protect against discrimination from as
:26:04. > :26:08.early as the 1960s. However, prejudice is still rife in our
:26:08. > :26:14.communities with certain groups becoming increasingly marginalised
:26:14. > :26:20.and individuals suffering from hate crimes. As a Muslim living in Wales