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Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who spoke in this important debate. I am also grateful to the Minister for his thoughtful response. However, I am as puzzled now as I was when moving the amendment as to why the Government are resisting it. I am puzzled in particular because the Minister very helpfully repeated what was stated by the Justice Secretary in his Guardian article: namely, that the Government are committed to access to justice as, "““a fundamental part of a properly functioning democracy””." Therefore, nothing is in dispute on this subject between the Minister and those of us who spoke in favour of the amendment. There is no issue of principle. The Minister spoke about the need for the Government to take tough economic decisions. Many noble Lords will be very sympathetic to him on that. We will debate very contentious issues as we go through Report. However, I say to noble Lords that the point has no relevance to this amendment, which expressly inserts, "““within the resources made available and in accordance with this Part””." This is not a partisan amendment. The case for it—and indeed the case against it—does not depend on the views that noble Lords may have on the merits or otherwise of the Government's proposals on the scope of legal aid. I will make two further points. The Minister made the point that there is no constitutional right of access to legal aid in all circumstances. Of course, he is right. Access to legal aid has always been subject to conditions, criteria and limitations. We will come on to debate whether there should be further restrictions, conditions, criteria and limitations. However, a provision in the terms that I propose has always been part of legal aid legislation, even though it has never in absolute terms provided legal aid in all circumstances.