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Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

My Lords, today the House has the opportunity to consider the Commons reasons in response to the amendments passed by this House during its consideration of this Bill. We have engaged in complex, informed and sometimes passionate debate on a wide range of issues that are of fundamental importance. In so doing, this House has exercised its rights and responsibility as a revising and advisory Chamber. I would hope that, in turn, the Government and the House of Commons have responded attentively and constructively to the opinions of this House. In addition, my ministerial colleagues and I have had numerous meetings with individual Peers and interest groups. We have listened, and we have amended. Before I deal with the details of Motion A, I would like to remind the House of some of the steps that we have taken to respond to its concerns and to make this a better Bill. From the start, our guiding principles have been to decide what kinds of case need public funding and what alternative routes are suitable for others. It is not all about cost savings, although they are clearly a vital factor; it is also about what kind of justice system we want for the future. Successive Governments have concluded that the provision of legal aid in the current structure is too broadly drawn, and it encourages court-based litigation and the engagement of professional lawyers as a first, rather than a last, resort. With that in mind, the test that the Government have applied to amendments in both Houses is whether they strengthen or weaken the principles behind the Bill—what I have described many times as its central architecture. We have accepted amendments where they truly improve the Bill. The House has done much valuable work in correcting omissions and ensuring that the most serious cases continue to receive public funding, and I am grateful for the commitment that this House has put into the Bill. As I have said, the Government have listened and have moved in important areas. We have accepted the arguments put forward by, among others, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Scotland, and adopted the definition of domestic violence used by ACPO. We have widened the forms of evidence of domestic violence that will be acceptable to secure legal aid funding in private law cases, and doubled the time limit within which such evidence may be presented. We have removed the power to means-test suspects in police custody, and retained legal aid funding for cases involving human trafficking and domestic child abduction. We have agreed that legal advice and assistance should be made available to welfare benefit appellants whose cases are heard by the Upper Tribunal, the Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court on points of law. We have committed to doing further work to see how we might provide funding for those appearing before the First-tier Tribunal whose case also turns on a point of law, and have retained legal aid for babies who are victims of clinical negligence. We have introduced further measures to put beyond doubt the extent of independence from Ministers enjoyed by the director of legal aid casework. Many concerns have been listened to and many amendments made, but we have not been able to satisfy every demand. We have now reached the stage where the Government ask both Houses to disagree with amendments that, in our opinion, would undermine the rationale and principles underlying the Bill. The Government cannot accept amendments that use scarce resources on lower priority needs where other funding is available, where conflicts could be resolved by other means or where people can reasonably make provisions themselves. The Government have demonstrated their commitment to the not-for-profit sector, which does such invaluable work, by providing £20 million a year for the next two years, in addition to the £16.8 million we have allocated for this year. However, in a time of austerity, we must make responsible choices about spending public money. We must be rigorous in our decisions about allocating resources. We cannot rely on unrealistic thinking about alternative methods for achieving savings. We have rehearsed the arguments at great length and in great depth. We are about to reflect on the House of Commons' opinion of your Lordships' amendments, and I will be asking the House to agree with the reasons of the House of Commons. I hope that this House will give good weight to that opinion. As I have said, we have listened and responded to the opinions of this House, which now has a responsibility to listen to the clear and settled view of the House of Commons.