Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

My Lords, the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, on Monday, and the sense of it being approved twice in your Lordships' House, sought to enshrine in Part 1 of the Bill access to justice as the objective of the Bill. Such a statement of principle was made in the Legal Aid and Advice Act 1949 and has been reaffirmed in every Act of successive Governments, including Conservative Governments, dealing with legal aid. When the Labour Government introduced the Access to Justice Bill in 1998, it included Clause 4(1), which instructs the Lord Chancellor to promote, "““the availability to individuals of services of the descriptions specified … and, in particular, for securing (within the resources made available, and priorities set, in accordance with this Part) that individuals have access to services that effectively meet their needs””." At that time, the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives, in opposition, wanted to place further duties on the Lord Chancellor. The noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, speaking from the Front Bench on behalf of the Liberal Democrats, said: "““What needs to be stated at the outset is the reason for providing the funding””.—[Official Report, 19/1/99; col. 480.]" It would be helpful if the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord McNally, speaking as a Liberal Democrat, would explain to us why the Liberals have now changed their tune. On the matter of financial privilege, opening his speech in another place yesterday Mr Djanogly said: "““Lords amendment 1B, dealing with the statutory duty for legal aid, impinges on the financial privileges in this House””.—[Official Report, Commons, 24/4/12; col. 830.]" I hope the Minister will be good enough to provide us with the Government's computation of the predicted additional costs to public expenditure of the incorporation of the amendment in the legislation, and make some observations on the appropriateness of the claim by the Minister in the other place at the outset, as his leading argument, that the amendment would impinge on the financial privilege of the House of Commons. None of us here contests the principle of financial privilege, but equally there is no obligation on Governments to claim financial privilege in relation to particular amendments. It seems very surprising that an amendment that demonstrably has no implications for public expenditure should have been subject to such a claim, and—