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Funding Code: Criteria and Procedures

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that clear exposition of what is in this order—except it is not quite an order—on the funding code criteria. It includes some rather wonderful lines. I particularly liked the bit about stakeholders expressing gratitude for being included in the consultation process. We then noticed in paragraph 8.2 of the Explanatory Memorandum: ""The vast majority of responses were opposed to most of our original proposals"." That is rather a good way of expressing their gratitude. I have a number of fairly straightforward questions which I should be grateful if the noble Lord could address. First, I think it would have been better if the Minister himself could have come to introduce the code—I would have been perfectly flexible about finding a date. The noble Lord, Lord Bach, is, after all, the Minister responsible for these matters and it was he who signed the impact assessment. Therefore, although the noble Lord has done the job very well, I think that the Committee would have been better served if the Minister had appeared before us. Secondly—here I have some praise for the department; it is always worth offering praise where it is due—I wish to say how impressed I was with the Explanatory Memorandum. I refer in particular to Annexe A, where we are taken through all the changes that have been made in a fairly straightforward manner that is relatively easy to understand, and therefore the number of questions that we might have put are reduced. I also thank the noble Lord’s department for sending me a copy of the Lord Chancellor’s authorisation with the appropriate amendments. Again, that made life considerably easier when I was examining the document. My major line of questioning relates to the fact that we presume these changes were designed to make savings. I appreciate that the Minister says that they were not driven primarily by the need to make financial savings but, as he knows, there is considerable pressure on the legal aid budget, and the civil side of the legal aid budget probably seems a much easier target than many. We also know that the department will have to find very large sums of money to meet a number of commitments that have recently been made by the Secretary of State and the Lord Chancellor. I think, for example, of the offer of some £200 million or thereabouts—the figure varied from £50 million to £200 million—to those who have developed pleural plaques. Again, I should be very grateful if the Minister could comment on this when he comes to respond but I have heard odd whisperings that that will not all come out of the department’s own budget and that other departments might be made to contribute. For example we have heard that, perhaps at a time when the Ministry of Defence is engaged in a war, the Ministry of Justice will be looking to the Ministry of Defence to make sacrifices to meet that commitment. I should be very grateful for the noble Lord’s response to that. The noble Lord says that this code is not designed to make savings. The figure for the net impact is given in paragraph 3.8 of the cost-benefit analysis section of the Explanatory Memorandum. It gives a figure for savings of £5.5 million a year, which represents a reduction in the civil legal aid expenditure of just 0.5 per cent after all the work that the Government have put into this. As we see, every possible form of assessment has been undertaken. We have had a competition assessment, a small firms impact assessment, a race equality assessment, a disability assessment, a gender equality assessment and a human rights assessment. It has even been rural-proofed. After all that straining, the Government are delivering a net saving of £5.5 million, or 0.5 per cent of the civil legal aid budget. We are very grateful for that reduction but I think that they will have to do somewhat better if they are to get to grips with these costs and with the whole legal aid budget. I refer not just to the civil legal aid budget, which is what we are dealing with here, but to other parts of the budget as well. Therefore, I should be grateful if the noble Lord could tell us whether any more assessments will be done in due course that might lead the Government to find greater savings in that budget. I do not have any further questions at the moment but I would certainly be very grateful if the noble Lord could address those points.