---

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

At one stage I accused Peter Lodder, chairman of the Bar Council, of stalking me, so often did I see him. Of course the Bar Council, the Law Society and various other bodies, including committees of this House, will give an opinion on legislation. We are certainly in conversation on these matters. The noble Lord shakes his head, but when he was a Minister he did not say, ““Come in, vested interests, tell me what you want and I will do it””. He listened to them, and where they could convince him he made changes. I assure noble Lords that my honourable and right honourable friends the Ministers in the other place and I have made ourselves constantly available to a wide range of bodies, including professional organisations, and we will continue to do so during the passage of the Bill. No organisation has a rubber stamp on the matter, but we will listen. In philosophy and in content, this has been an extremely useful debate that I will draw to the attention of the Lord Chancellor. When it comes to the crunch, we face a division between the principled approach of the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, that access to justice means that we must pay the legal aid bill, whatever it is.