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Criminal Defence Service (Information Requests) Regulations 2009

My Lords, I thank both noble Lords for their comments on this statutory instrument. I will first try to explain the need for the power to exchange more information in this way. It allows for a more detailed verification of an applicant’s financial status, which in itself can help to tackle fraud. We are talking about a defendant in a case who is seeking taxpayers’ money—legal aid—which is a limited resource. The noble Lord, Lord Thomas, talks about it as though it has not increased hugely in the course of the past 25 years and the past 10 years. In England and Wales we spend about £2 billion per year on legal aid, £1.2 billion of which goes towards the criminal courts and the balance towards both family and civil courts. Many of us think that that is a serious imbalance, particularly against civil legal aid and those at the bottom of the pile who need more help than they get. The argument is that, in criminal cases, the amount of legal aid spent is very large indeed. It is true that the legal aid budget is not going up at the moment, nor is it likely to in the foreseeable future. That would currently be the case under any Government that was in charge. However, it is a generous system compared to that of any other country in the world. I want to be careful about comparisons, because not all systems of law are the same as that which we conduct here. The reason for this statutory instrument is that it allows for more detailed verification. There will be no delay—less delay, if anything—as a consequence. Although the previous system did not work badly, there was a feeling among government departments that it was better to put this system on a clearer and more systematic basis, so it was decided to go this way. To answer the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, on savings made by the means-testing scheme in the magistrate’s courts, its reintroduction has delivered in excess of £65 million in net savings between October 1 2006 and the end of August 2008. This has enabled the Government to maintain their commitment to make some effort to rebalance legal aid funding in favour of the civil scheme. I hope that that will find general support in this House and elsewhere.