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Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for his consideration of this matter and to other noble Lords who have spoken. The noble and learned Lord raised two points, as I understood him. His first concern was that this amendment would somehow politicise the functions of the director. It would not. The Lord Chancellor would remain responsible for funding questions and would decide whether it was appropriate to provide additional funding. It would be entirely a matter for the director to decide on the allocation of such funding, if any. There is no question of any politicisation of these responsibilities. The noble and learned Lord also suggested that it was satisfactory for the exceptional cases category to be confined to those cases in which an issue arises pursuant to the European Convention on Human Rights. In my view, that is not adequate. The exceptional cases category should be sufficiently broad to cover exceptional cases whether or not an issue is engaged under the European convention. I suggest to noble Lords that there is no basis for resisting this amendment. The Government agree that there should be an exceptional cases category—and they are right. This amendment would ensure that the exceptional cases category is sufficiently broad to enable the director to deal with exceptional cases, if and when the Lord Chancellor provides funding. This amendment imposes no duty whatever on the Lord Chancellor and requires no funding to be provided. It is purely permissive, and I invite noble Lords to support it on that basis. I wish to test the opinion of the House. Division on Amendment 19 Contents 201; Not-Contents 201. Amendment 19 disagreed. Clause 21 : Financial resources Amendment 20 Moved by