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Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Let me move on, because I am giving way far too much and taking a great deal of time. Lords amendment 170 sounds like an innocuous measure, but it would open up legal aid to cover the costs of expert reports in all the cases that currently are funded by CFAs or no win, no fee arrangements. It would allow lawyers to apply for legal aid to cover the expert report in any case where a client, of any age, was financially eligible, and to still get their success fee in respect of their other legal costs. That would transfer all the risk in a no win, no fee case from the solicitors and insurers to the legal aid fund and the taxpayer. That would be unfair to the taxpayer and would result in a significant expansion of the legal aid scheme. I have covered with as much care as I can these particularly sensitive areas—