Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

My Lords, I would like to ask the Government a simple question. What do the Bar Council, the Law Society and the organisations concerned with poverty with regard to legal services have to say? Have the Government taken the trouble to consult these organisations? The noble Lord says that they have. So what is their reply? They remain obdurately opposed to the principles that the Government are putting forward today. I unhesitatingly support the amendment. Pretty well all the speeches in the Committee—whether from the Conservative, Liberal Democrat or these Benches, and on the Cross Benches—have expressed opposition to what the Government are trying to do and support for what the amendment stands for. I also unhesitatingly support the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile. He has spoken very bravely, and has been supported by several noble Lords who share his profession. A bevy of Silks have announced support for the proposition advanced by the amendment. I got involved with legal aid from pretty well the very beginning, because of a very simple notion—I thought it was imperative that ordinary people should be able to advance their cause and, where they are impaired from doing so, they should be supported by the state. That was my view then. The amendment sets out very clearly, within the constraints that are necessarily imposed upon us, the basic principles that we should preserve. It is vital that individuals should have access to legal services, where their rights are being seriously impaired or are not being properly advanced—subject always to the provisions of the 1999 Act. There is a serious risk that both of these will occur, separately, under the changes to legal aid provision now being contemplated. I am surprised that any person of any sensitivity—and I think that the noble Lord, Lord McNally, would fall into that category—would support such changes. I have always had great admiration for the noble Lord—I do not know why, as he has done his best to impair that decision on my part. It is not a question of party prejudice at all; it is a question of downright decency and that is what I support today.