Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

My Lords, I rise to support the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, and apologise for missing her opening remarks. However, before briefly addressing the amendment, I would like to associate myself with the words in remembrance of Lord Newton. In another place I worked very closely with him, as Tony Newton, when I was vice-chair of the parliamentary All-Party Disablement Group. Even when he could not meet us in all our demands, he was always very positive and looked for ways to come at least some of the way towards us. He will be a great loss for all of us in this House as well as for the many thousands outside the House for whom he worked so hard. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord McNally, for some of the concessions that he has been able to make at other times—particularly for those with learning difficulties—which I was unable to acknowledge earlier. On this specific amendment, all of us who have had reason to work on behalf of disabled children will be aware of the need to ensure that they get fair play within the system. If there is any danger of them losing out and not being able to go to appeal on benefits then there need to be safeguards in legislation. Many of us served for weeks on end on the Welfare Reform Bill. We hoped that some amendments would strengthen it and make it more easily understood. In reality, the amendments failed. There will be challenges to the interpretation of the legislation that will need to go to the courts. Unless provisions such as those in the amendment are included in the Bill, people will miss out. Therefore, even if some aspects—to which the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, referred—are already covered elsewhere, others are not. Therefore, let us give another place a chance by agreeing the amendment. If there is then a need to pare it back, all well and good—but at this point, unless we agree the amendment we will lose everything.