My Lords, I, too, wish to add my support to these amendments for the reasons so clearly explained by my noble friend Lord Pannick and others. As noble Lords are aware, I have contributed to the debate on this part of the Bill throughout its passage through the House. Let me explain why. I have supported the amendments because I want to show how these government reforms will affect disadvantaged citizens, especially the 10 million disabled people in this country who seek legal justice. Sometimes I think that we forget about the disadvantaged, the poor and the disabled who have no means or recourse to abuse. They simply want access to justice.
I know—I really know—what disabled people experience on a daily basis. I do not need to remind the House that when public authorities get it wrong, my God, they get it wrong and it has devastating effects on the individual. It hits disabled people particularly hard because they are the most in need of taking public authorities to court to get justice for their services—the services that they rely on to survive and live. They are absolutely, disproportionately dependent
on public services and judicial review. As I said before, I have never known judicial review to be abused by disabled people or the charities that support them.
Claude 70 will effectively allow public authorities to ignore due process. That cuts across the public sector equality duty, which is so crucial in holding public authorities to account. Coupled with the cuts to legal aid, Clause 70 will effectively deny access to justice to those who most need it—not the big companies or multinationals, but just the people who need it, those at the margins of society. That is not the kind of justice we want in our democracy for vulnerable citizens. This clause has absolutely no place on the statute book in these terms.