Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

My Lords, I am in entire agreement with what has been said by my noble friends Lady Doocey and Lord Newton and the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett. I should be very grateful if, in responding on these amendments, my noble friend Lord McNally would tell the Committee whether in respect of later amendments that seek to ensure proper funding for CABs and advice agencies there is going to be a positive answer, because that will have a major effect on my whole approach to this part of the Bill. It does not need repeating that cutting legal advice in relation to social welfare claimants is, on the face of it, utterly bonkers. First, the people seeking that advice are the most vulnerable in our society. I wonder how many people who are now in this Chamber have ever sought assistance under the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992 or the Welfare Reform Act and so on. There is a whole forest or jungle of social security law, and I ask anyone in this Committee who thinks that, because it is for the common man it is simple, to have a look at any of the legislation. It is a nightmare. I have given a bit of legal advice in law centres in my time. It was a nightmare when I did it as a young solicitor but it is a treble nightmare now. Someone said recently that the CAB advice manual for social security law ran to a couple of hundred pages, but it now goes well into the thousands.