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Criminal Defence Service Bill [Lords]

: I must say to the hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) that it is paranoia of the highest order to be afraid of the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). However, I agree with some of what the hon. Member for Leicester, East said. There are few months of the year in which I bemoan the dearth of legislation coming from the DCA and the Home Office. Indeed, sometimes it feels as though one does nothing else but read new legislation. However, the hon. Gentleman is right about the relationship between the two, although I would argue that we should have a ministry of justice to take on all criminal justice responsibilities. If we create 800 new offences, people will be tried for them and that costs money, which is where the increase in legal aid comes from. I believe legal aid to be one of the great glories of this country. The fact that we are prepared to institute a pillar of our welfare state to provide for people who need representation before our courts is something to be rejoiced and not slighted; it is a necessary part of a civilised society. I pay tribute to the Under-Secretary, who has finally discovered how to pronounce my constituency, to the point that she corrects others. That is a wonderful advance in a short time. She and other Committee members have done a fine job. We debated the Bill and, we hope, improved it, but we did not take an unnecessary amount of time to do so. The fact that we have managed to complete consideration does not suggest a lack of care or scrutiny. It is a simple fact that this is a brief Bill with few complicated proposals that, therefore, does not require long consideration. But we have pointed out what is lacking in it. It would be easy, were it not for the constraints of the rules of the House on Third Reading, to launch into a much wider debate on the future of legal aid, as it is a serious issue that needs debating. This debate, however, deals with a narrow point. It would also be extremely valuable to pick up on the point made by the hon. Member for Leicester, East and his hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North (Julie Morgan), and I hope that the Minister can enlighten us as to the loss of specialist officers in the Legal Services Commission. This measure deals with eligibility for criminal defence legal aid. Two issues arose in Committee, the other place having dealt with the major issue of the capacity to appeal in the interests of justice. One was the issue of the residual power, which was raised by the new clause. I still maintain that that would have been an improvement to the Bill, that it would have created a better, more appropriate way of dealing with exceptional cases, and that it would have saved a little money in the process. The Minister has not, however, accepted that. The other issue was that of appeal. I have said that I believe that the amendment from the other place was wider and better in its scope, but I repeat that I am grateful to the Minister for listening to my points and arranging for me to meet her officials to discuss whether a compromise was possible, and for accepting the amendment to the Bill today. I say with a degree of confidence that I think that it will satisfy those in another place who will consider the matter later. The Minister must not be allowed to get away with the fact that the Government marched us up this hill only a few years ago and are now marching us down again. Consistency is not the Government’s strongest point in their approach to this issue. That said, I welcome what has been put in place today to curb what, to the layman, and to an interested observer, are abuses of the system. I welcome the fact that the Government have not reintroduced a crude threshold for means tests but have taken a more sensitive and sensible view about the taper that should be applied, which I commend. I return to a basic point: nobody wants to see a lot of money spent on legal aid until they need that support to defend themselves in court. It not just millionaires, or those without means, that we are dealing with. It is those in the middle who are most affected when, in extreme circumstances, they find themselves before the court and unable to receive the support that they need to present their case properly. Those people must be clearly in our minds when addressing the Bill. The Bill goes a long way to deal with some of those issues. The wider issues of legal aid in the criminal and civil courts will wait another day, but the Minister can be assured that we have extremely strong opinions on those.