Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

My Lords, before I address the amendments, I must correct something that I said in Committee. I unfortunately misrepresented the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, as saying that 10 per cent of National Health Service patients suffered clinical negligence. I rather conflated different figures. He referred to the fact that a million of what are described in somewhat Orwellian language as ““adverse incidents”” take place in the health service, of which only 10,000 give rise to claims, which represents only 1 per cent of those adverse incidents. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, has in the previous debate, and indeed in virtually every debate, prayed in aid as a rationale for government policy the question of costs. It is not unreasonable that costs and public expenditure should form part of these discussions, but, as we have heard today from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, and the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, and others, the argument in this case runs the other way. What the Government are proposing would cost the Exchequer, rather than the converse. In any case, we are speaking only of some £10 million, which would have been the saving under the Government's original policy. I welcome so far as it goes the amendment that the Government are proposing. As they are now going some way—though not far enough—towards meeting the case for extending legal aid, that amount of saving would be reduced in any event. However, it is not just those of us who support the amendments of the noble and learned Lord and of the noble Baronesses, Lady Grey-Thompson and Lady Eaton, who take the point about the cost and the way in which the system would work. No less an authority than the National Health Service Litigation Authority has expressed its considerable reservations about the Government's approach, saying: "““We have serious concerns over the proposal to withdraw legal aid from clinical negligence claims. Whilst we have seen an upsurge of claims brought under Conditional Fee Agreements (CFAs) in recent years, we question whether CFAs are likely to be readily available to fund many of the more serious claims currently brought via legal aid””." That view is at odds with that of the noble Lord, Lord Thomas. Given that the litigation authority is at the receiving end of these claims, I am inclined to give rather more weight to its views.