Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

My Lords, I have put my name to Amendments 23 and 27, which are very much on the same lines as the amendment by the noble Lord, Lord Faulks. I find it absolutely astonishing that the Government should, in Clause 8, have an arrangement whereby they can delete legal aid but they cannot bring it back. It is particularly astonishing because a number of judges who know what they are talking about—two Supreme Court judges who have been judges in the Family Division and the present president of the Family Division—all say that this is a false economy. I very well understand that it is absolutely necessary to cut the legal aid bill. However, if the Government cut it in the wrong way, as I suggest they are doing and as I shall say in the debate on later amendments, they cannot put it back if it requires primary legislation. As the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, has already said, the whole purpose of these amendments is not to destroy the Bill but to allow the Government, or indeed a subsequent Government, a degree of flexibility so that they do not have to use primary legislation to achieve their purpose. Therefore, I very much support all the amendments in this group.