Shadow Solicitor General and Newcastle North MP, Catherine McKinnell, questioned the Law Officers in the Commons today about their role in ensuring that Coalition Ministers are aware of their legal duties to properly consult and rigorously consider the equalities impacts of cuts before funding and policy decisions are taken.

Speaking during oral questions to the Attorney General, Catherine asked Solicitor General Edward Garnier whether the Law Officers would produce guidance on this issue, in the face of recent high-profile legal challenges to funding cuts imposed by the Coalition.

Catherine said:

“As I said in the Commons today, the POPPY project – which supports female victims of human trafficking – is threatening a legal challenge to the Ministry of Justice following its failure to consult and to publish an equality impact assessment on proposed funding cuts, which they state would breach the UK’s obligations under the Council of Europe Convention Against Human Trafficking.

“This follows the High Court’s recent damning verdict on the way in which the Department for Education cancelled the Building Schools for the Future programme, and the Fawcett Society’s challenge to the disproportionate impact on women of the emergency Budget.

“I want to know from the Government Law Officers whether Departments are aware of their duties to properly consult, and to rigorously consider the equality impacts of cuts, before decisions are taken. These processes should not be afterthoughts – but are legal requirements which must form an integral part of Government policy- and decision-making.

“However, recent legal challenges to the way in which Government cuts have been handled suggest that this is simply not the case for the Coalition. The Law Officers must take steps to ensure Ministers are aware, and act upon, their legal duties otherwise Government decisions are only going to continue to face even more costly legal challenges.”

Previous articles by Catherine McKinnell on this issue, published on The Guardian’s Comment is Free website, can be read here and here.