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Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

My Lords, we are now at the end of Part 2—sorry, I mean Part 1. The Chief Whip was ecstatic at the thought that we might have reached the end of Part 2. As I am leading for the Opposition on Part 2, I would be ecstatic as well, but we are not there yet, and the House may not be so ecstatic when they hear me during our debate on Part 2. This is another potential sting in the tail of Part 1, given that it looks to be another device to extract from beneficiaries of legal aid—or, more particularly, their advisers—money to help fund the general system. Of course, the practice of having a statutory charge on the assets recovered is long-standing and has been particularly relevant in matrimonial cases. It has been well understood that money was devoted to the cost to the legal aid fund incurred as part of the action. We are now apparently faced, in addition to the charge on property recovered, with a charge on costs paid by the other side in such a case. In reality, given that legal aid rates are significantly lower than the rates of inter partes costs, the defendant’s or unsuccessful litigant’s costs, the inter partes costs in effect help to subsidise the legal aid costs. There seems no logical reason to attach those costs—and it might well have a significant impact on providers, who in the swings and roundabouts that we will debate at some length when we discuss conditional fees under Part 2 actually help to subsidise the work. Moreover, I understand that there has been no consultation about this aspect, which is a matter of some considerable concern. I do not know whether the Government have assessed the impact on the supply of legal aid providers—maybe they have. The suggestion from some in the profession is certainly that it would have a significant impact on the provision of legal services. I have heard today in a different or earlier context of a significant legal aid practice in the north-east that is seeking to drop a couple of its contracts because it is having to subsidise it from the rest of its work, and the practice cannot cope with that. This kind of provision will make that even more likely.