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Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

We have consulted very carefully on legal aid, on both parts. We have made quite significant changes to what we originally proposed. On welfare benefits, we are still of the opinion that the welfare system was not intended to provide a source of litigation where legal advice was required to take an appeal in the last resort to a tribunal. That was not intended to be a legalistic activity but to try to apply what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security is trying to make more comprehensible by putting the rules of entitlement to social security in a sensible fashion. I do not think it is a promising area for legal advice.