Conservatives: fairness for all

Only the Conservatives will have a rational debate on such issues as the NHS, Europe, legal aid and human rights, says Andrew Kidd

In the run up to the May general election, SJ will run a series of articles featuring legal practitioners in support of their chosen party

If the election campaign could be summarised in one word, I suggest it would be "fairness". This election should, therefore, hold a particular appeal for us fair-minded lawyers.

Conservatives believe in a fair society. Churchill expressed it most succinctly when he said society should create "a limit beneath which no man may fall, but no limit to which any man might rise".

Nevertheless, we are told that this Conservative-led coalition favours only the "rich" and that "fairness" would be for the rich  to shoulder more of the burden of recovery. But take income tax, for example, the reality is that the top 1 per cent of earners now contribute a record 29.8 per cent of all income tax, and the top 16 per cent of earners pay 67 per cent.

The system of the state taking our money is as fair as it can be: the more you earn, the more you pay. If you increase the top rate of tax to 50p - as Labour promises to do, even though it chose not to for almost all its last term of office - you introduce a punitive element. And while that may appeal to the "anti-capitalist" sentiment which Labour has successfully whipped up, it would be counterproductive. Studies show lower tax rates result in a higher tax take for the Exchequer. In the words of John F. Kennedy, "the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut rates now".

Legal aid

Parts of the profession will no doubt use 7 May as a protest against Chris Grayling's legal aid reforms, which Labour's shadow justice minister Andy Slaughter has confirmed he will not seek to reverse, and nothing I say here will dissuade them from doing so. For those whose livelihoods have been affected I have some sympathy, but the reforms must be judged against the reality  that we had one of the most expensive legal aid systems in the world.

The reforms were not ideological but necessary in order to make legal aid sustainable for those who need it, and for the taxpayer, who ultimately pays for it. Vested interests will never vote for cost cutting in the same way that turkeys will never vote for Christmas.

Unlike some lawyers, who have sneered at Grayling for being the first Lord Chancellor not to be a lawyer in 440 years, I can see the merit of having a non-lawyer devising efficiency. As he says himself, not having a vested interest affords him the ability to make objective decisions for the good of society.

With so much of our business stemming from the City, our partnership with the EU must be big on the agenda for those lawyers whose fee income is reliant on easy cross-border trade with the Euro-zone. We already know that some US banks are drawing up preliminary plans to move some London-based activities to Ireland due to concerns the UK is drifting apart from the EU. Clearly, the uncertainty is damaging. Only the Conservatives will go to the public with an in or out referendum within three years of 7 May.

The NHS, as great as it is, has been elevated to almost divine status. This is wrong. We need to have a rational debate about the sustainability of the largest employer in Europe. The simple fact is that there are vastly more people using it.

At the inception of the NHS, fewer than one in ten were over 65 years old. By 2030 it will be more than one in five. The unpalatable truth, therefore, is that the NHS, in its current model, is unsustainable. Only the Conservatives will bring a rational debate to making the NHS viable, through an array of funding and provision reforms, for the next 60 years and beyond.

Human rights

Some practitioners may be concerned about the preservation of the Human Rights Act. It needs to go and go quickly. I need not recite here the plethora of cases handed down seemingly only to make the blood boil. In 2006, Tony Blair complained that a judgment about a group of Afghans who hijacked a plane was an "abuse of common sense". Far from achieving its object of "bringing rights home", it has brought the law into disrepute.

Vote Conservative and a majority Conservative government will replace the Human Rights Act with a Bill of Rights and Responsibilities which will not accommodate blatant abuses of well-meaning law. Such a bill will retain the principles of the original Human Rights Convention but will introduce common sense by putting limitations on where and how it can be applied. The end product will be better human rights - and fairness - for everyone, not just the few. SJ

Andrew Kidd is a private client partner at Clintons

@AndrewJKiddWC2

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