Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

I have already said that access to justice is fundamental, but the fact is that the taxpayer's money cannot be used to give access to justice to large numbers of people in large areas of law where the ordinary citizen would not contemplate litigating because the ordinary citizen on an ordinary income would not think that they could afford to embark on it. That is why we consulted very carefully. We concentrated on vulnerable people and on those areas that were of such importance that society as a whole would plainly feel that there was a need to finance people of limited means so that they could have access to justice. I ask the right hon. Lady to judge all our proposals on that basis. Lady Hale seemed to think that we were abolishing other access on the basis that people were using it too much. That is not the reason that we have. But we do have a system that is four times as expensive as that of New Zealand. We have to concentrate the mind and decide what it is justified to expect the taxpayer to pay for.