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Justice: Reform of Punishment, Rehabilitation, Sentencing and Legal Aid

The wider point that my noble friend makes about the amount of legislation is probably for another debate. We are not abolishing legal aid, but we are making cuts on the civil legal aid side. We will abolish the Legal Services Commission and vest responsibility for the administration of legal aid with the Lord Chancellor. We will, as I said, implement reforms to the scope of civil legal aid services, enable the courts in ancillary relief cases to make interim lump sum payments against a party with means to pay other parties’ costs and facilitate the creation of a supplementary legal aid scheme by enabling a percentage of a litigant’s damages to be paid back into the legal aid fund to support the funding of future cases. We will implement Lord Justice Jackson’s reforms to the costs of civil litigation, abolish the recoverability of success fees and after-the-event insurance premiums from the losing party and amend the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985 to cap payments made to acquitted defendants from central funds. We are reforming legal aid, we are targeting legal aid, but we are not abolishing legal aid, because I share my noble friend’s concerns about its importance in our system and in the citizen’s access to justice.