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Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

My Lords, I share with the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, the commendation of the Government for putting in the extraordinarily interesting and, I think, very valuable subsection (3) in Clause 1. It is excellent. The only thing that I do not understand is why the word is ““may”” and not ““must””. One starts by knowing that whatever happens in the latter part of this Bill, we are bound to have a situation where the Government will have less money to put into legal aid. As the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, has pointed out, consequently, more people will have to deal with their own cases. It is very important that there should be an obligation, rather than just the opportunity, for the Lord Chancellor or the Ministry of Justice to have some imaginative ideas to help people who are going to have to do their own cases. The word ““must”” should be in the Bill. I am somewhat surprised that the Government, having gone so far with this imaginative idea, did not think that it was necessary to make it compulsory.