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Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

My Lords, it is with some relief that I return to the question of referral fees for positively the last time in the course of the Bill. The Opposition have no objection to these amendments in the circumstances and we congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, on having suggested them to the Government. I do not know whether the noble Lord read the Daily Telegraph last Monday— which I think informed the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, with its suggestions about the Labour Party's alleged scheme for referral fees, about which I spoke at our previous meeting—but there is a certain irony in the amendment. He may not know—I did not know until after the event—that no less a body than the Daily Telegraph runs a referral scheme, including for personal injuries. It is interesting that that newspaper should have run a story criticising the Labour Party for something that does not exist when it has precisely the same scheme. Apparently it has a scheme with a firm called Irwin Mitchell, of which the noble Lord will have no doubt heard, which levies referral fees. Oddly enough, the Daily Telegraph did not disclose that in the piece that it ran. However, the Opposition are quite content with the amendment. Amendment 29 agreed. Amendment 30 Moved by