Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

I am pondering whether to say, ““If the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, is playing into the Government’s hands, it would be for the first time””, but I will not. Instead, I will simply say that we have taken a decision on the shape of this Bill which we have continued to explain. We have returned to a number of issues around that, and this amendment seeks to include a power within the Bill to fund the not-for-profit sector to do work that is outside the proposed scope of the civil legal aid scheme. I acknowledge that a number of noble Lords have concerns about the sustainability of the not-for-profit sector, and I will return to that later. However, to seek to include a provision within the Bill to fund the sector for work outside the proposed legal aid scheme is, in our view, unnecessary. Not-for-profit providers have been eligible to compete for legal aid contracts since 2000, and while the proposed changes set out in the Bill will impact on the type of cases they currently handle, future contracts for work that remains in scope will continue to provide opportunities for such organisations to bid to deliver legal aid services. It is also unnecessary to provide for such specific powers in the Bill, as the Ministry of Justice can provide grants to organisations promoting Ministry of Justice objectives. For example, both the Ministry of Justice—