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Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

My Lords, most Members of this House would approve of the idea of having good-quality expert evidence in cases. In the area in which I practise there have been considerable strides forward in that regard. Although the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, speaks of hired guns and undesirable practices, it should be known that much has improved in this area, not least thanks to the major contribution of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, the CPR, the exchange of experts’ reports, experts’ meetings and a sensible control of the questions that are asked, so I would not like the House to get the impression that the world is a jungle where experts are concerned. Litigation is much more orderly than it was and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris, is quite correct that good experts often produce settlement and good results. While I certainly applaud the sense the amendment, which is to encourage good-quality experts, the reason why they are sometimes not available is not simply because of money. There are difficulties simply in finding the right experts for the right cases because they have other commitments. Let us take paediatric neurology, for example, an area that is particularly important in clinical negligence cases. Very few are available, and they are very often not available for many months. In other words, there are factors that are not easily within the reach of any form of legislative provision. While approving the general spirit of the amendment, I would countenance some wariness in enshrining this in any legislative form.