Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

My Lords, I rise in the hope of commanding your Lordships’ attention for two reasons. First, my name is on one of the amendments in this group in the name of my noble friend Lady Eaton. Secondly, since I was unable to be here last week, I want the Front Bench to know that I am back. I have listened with care to the speeches that have been made, and obviously I express my support in particular for the arguments on children’s clinical negligence which were raised by my noble friend Lady Eaton. I also want to say to my noble friends that when they come across an amendment with the names Newton and Tebbit on it, they are in trouble. I am sorry that my noble friend is evidently not able to be here today. We are friends but no one who knows us both will think that we always come from the same perspective. Here, we are united. I need not repeat the points that have been made in debate, not least the very important points made by a number of my noble friends, including my noble friends Lord Faulks and Lord Carlile and—not to minimise any other speeches—the very constructive remarks just made by the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu. I share the view that this is one of those areas where it is highly likely not only that the game is not worth the candle but that the costs to other departments will be greater than any savings to the Ministry of Justice. That simply cannot be a sensible way to approach the problem of the deficit as a whole. Without rehearsing all these arguments again, I hope that I am right in detecting in the air today a move away from what my noble friend Lord Carlile memorably described at an earlier stage as ““irritated intransigence”” from the other end of the building, and that we will get a constructive approach. We have certainly heard a lot of constructive speeches; I think that they deserve—if I may say so to my noble friends on the Front Bench—a constructive response. Leaving aside the Newton-Tebbit point, if I were them and looked at the totality of the names on the amendments in this group, I would decide, if I may coin a phrase, that concession was the better part of valour.