Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

I hesitate to interrupt the noble Lord but can he help me on a point about legal aid being withdrawn from private law cases? He will know that one of the main ways of there being a finding of fact is through those private law situations. If there is an impecunious litigant, can he help me as to how that litigant—normally a woman—is going to get those findings of fact if she does not have legal aid to do so? That is one issue. Secondly, has the noble Lord seen or read the recent survey by Women’s Aid, Rights of Women and Welsh Women’s Aid that found that the majority of respondents did not report abuse the first time it occurred but typically did so after being assaulted between three and five times? Although 99 per cent had reported at least one incident to the police and/or the police had attended an incident, only 8.3 per cent would be able to prove that they had had an ongoing criminal proceeding in the previous 12 months. There seem to be a lot of practical difficulties and I wonder whether the noble Lord can help the Committee in relation to those matters.