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Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

On Lords amendment 194. Campaigners have advocated for nearly two years the funding that I described, and we are delighted that the Government have now seen the light. However, they continue to fail to do so when it comes to reviews and first-tier tribunals, which are the only mechanisms by which fact can be challenged. We seem to be a bit fuzzy about points of law and fact, so I point out that higher courts deal only with points of law. Before the debates in another place on legal aid funding for advice on welfare benefits, the noble Lord Pannick, QC, wrote to all peers making the case for welfare benefits advice. He made a simple and powerful case for those unlawfully denied disability benefits having access to advice. The case is well understood by Government Members, and I can only imagine that that is how they managed to eke out the concession from the Lord Chancellor at the very last minute. Before the election, the Prime Minister wrote a powerful piece for The Independent on his experience with the benefits system. He said that"““life for parents of disabled children is complicated enough without having to jump through hundreds of government hoops. After the initial shock of diagnosis you're plunged into a world of bureaucratic pain. Having your child assessed and getting the help you're entitled to means answering the same questions over and over again, being buried under snow drifts of forms, spending hours on hold in the phone queue…I am determined to make life simpler for parents.””" Later, he posited a solution in a speech, saying he wanted to help disabled people when they have a problem accessing the benefits system. He said:"““For the sake of these families' sanity we are looking at the evidence and considering…pulling professionals like doctors, paediatric nurses, physiotherapists and benefits specialists together in one team to act as a one-stop-shop for assessment and advice.””" I have no doubt the Prime Minister wrote openly and honestly, so it is baffling that his Justice Secretary is taking specialist advice away from disabled people and, worse still, from children, who have absolutely no ability to navigate the justice system alone. We can see the problem and there are obvious solutions, but the Justice Secretary has broken the promises that have been made. Here is another example of those broken promises. Asked by The Guardian what the big society was, the Prime Minister immediately pointed to his local citizens advice bureau, but Citizens Advice, the primary agency that delivers welfare benefits advice, is facing massive cuts because of these changes. Alongside law centres and other neighbourhood advice services, citizens advice bureaux are both value for money and valued by the communities they serve, but now their future is very uncertain.