Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

My Lords, I raised in Committee the issue of the advice sector and advice agencies, about which the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, has spoken. If one takes stock of where we have got to in this debate, in which there have been many speakers, one sees that everyone from every Bench has said that the Bill will not do and does not provide necessary support in the welfare area. I do not for a moment want to repeat the powerful speeches of the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, the noble Lord, Lord Newton, or others. The question is not, ““Does the Bill need to be amended to deal with welfare benefit in some way?””; the question is, ““How should it be amended?””. I therefore want to speak to Amendment 101, which was seductively spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and the exceptional funds that we have been told about and, no doubt, will be told about. The fact in relation to the advice agencies—and I have explained my connection with them—is, as the Minister helpfully told me in a letter that is now in the Library, that the funding given to the not-for-profit sector will be cut by 77 per cent. That represents more than twice—nearly three times—the £20 million that the noble Lord talked about as an addition. The Advice Services Alliance estimates that 800 specialist advisers will be lost from the advice sector as a result. As many noble Lords have said—and from my experience as a lawyer it is true—it is important to bear in mind that the welfare benefit side requires an expertise that most lawyers do not have. It is also another reason why the argument sometimes put forward for the Bill—that it will reduce the fat cats—is completely lost. No cat gets fat on welfare law. The questions are on whether the vague and hedged promises of some money are sufficient, and whether the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, is enough. For three reasons, I respectfully say that it is not. First, it is rather confusing. It divides into two parts. Proposed new subsection (1) mentions the Lord Chancellor having a power, as the noble Lord said. He may make funding available. That is a discretion. As we discussed in Committee, you cannot enforce a discretion; what the Lord Chancellor—or, as I rather mischievously suggested, the Chancellor of the Exchequer—decides to do determines what happens under that subsection. We have a new subsection proposed which states: "““The Lord Chancellor must make permanent arrangements for such purposes””," and then specifies certain things. There are two problems with that. First, it appears to conflict with the first subsection, which identifies a discretion. Indeed, if you have to identify the hierarchy of the subsections, the first appears to be the most important, because proposed new subsection (2) says that the Lord Chancellor must make permanent arrangements ““for such purposes””. ““Such purposes”” is a reference back to proposed new subsection (1), which is discretionary. So my first concern is that that does not impose a duty on anybody. My second concern is that it is entirely unclear what is the ambit of that duty. Nowhere else in this field do we not specify by some objective criteria and assessment what is needed to meet that requirement. The amendment does not do that at all. It mentions funding bodies and law centres, but does not specify by how much, who is to decide and how it is to be distributed, nor impose any obligation on the Lord Chancellor—let alone the Chancellor of the Exchequer—to make sure that the funding provided is sufficient to meet an identified need. I would be happy to see an identification of that need. That is the way we legislate in this House and in this country: we identify a need; we impose a duty on a Minister to meet that need. We do not leave it entirely to discretion either whether there is a duty at all, as the amendment would, or what is the extent of that duty. Much though I commend the spirit behind the amendment, for the reasons I have given the House should not be seduced into thinking that it is a safe way to deal with the hardship, injustice and unfairness that so many noble Lords have said that the Bill will otherwise produce.