Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

As I said at the very beginning, we were faced with circumstances where we had to make hard choices. The noble Lord sticks to the mantra, ““Not these cuts, not this place, not now””. A number of telling points have been made by the contributions today. To clarify a point that my noble friend Lord Faulks asked for, the regulations under Clause 8(2) would be subject to the affirmative procedure in terms of parliamentary scrutiny. However I take full note of the point that the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, made, that strong and experienced legal opinion has advised against this one-way street which is built into the Bill. I also take on board—which is why I want to come back to this at the end—the question of primary legislation as against secondary legislation. I also take note of the advice of the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, about the need for flexibility and future-proofing, which my noble friend Lord Thomas also referred to. The importance, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scott, pointed out of the adequacy of the civil justice system, is something that is constantly in our minds in trying to determine our priority, and I take on board the warnings that we have had about the dangers of litigants in person. The noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, asked whether the aim was to see legal aid wither on the vine. That is certainly not our intention. Like previous speakers, the noble Baroness argued again the case for having some guard against what she termed the ““law of unintended consequences””. Although the term ““sucking on the sweetie”” must be some aspect of Scottish law rather than English law. As a non-lawyer, I would not know. However I agree that ““sucking on the sweetie”” may well be the test of all legislation. My noble friend Lord Carlile called for us to keep the door open. He was right to say that all Ministers must be ready to take lobbying; that is not in doubt. The noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, cursed with the fluency of the Welsh, talks about the liquidation of legal aid. I remind colleagues, as I have in previous debates, that we are talking about a 17 per cent reduction of present expenditure over the lifetime of this spending review. This is not the liquidation of legal aid. Whatever debates there are about other countries and other systems, I have never seen it challenged that ours is a most generous system of legal aid. I was pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, said that he did not believe that the sky was the limit regarding legal aid; it sometimes sounds as if that is what he is saying. Legal aid has never been available at the point of need in the way that was the great aspiration of the National Health Service. Those drawing up the rules of legal aid have had to do just that: draw lines and often make difficult decisions. My noble friend Lord Phillips argued for what I should describe as the doom scenario. That may be a case that makes the argument for looking again at the clause, although Ministers do not believe that all the terrible things in reports, briefings or speeches in this House are going to take place. The noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, was suspicious of secondary legislation. Again, that would carry more weight if he had not been a strong supporter over 13 years of a Government who brought forward a whole tsunami of secondary legislation.