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Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

I regret that I have to disagree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf—I very rarely do. However, there is a statement of principle in Clause 1: it is that the Lord Chancellor must secure that legal aid is made available in accordance with this part. That is a very simple, short statement which would cause no judge any difficulty whatever in interpreting the provisions of the Bill. I said in Committee that the amendment then proposed was meaningless and added nothing to the Bill. I say precisely the same of the amendment as redrafted. The amendment adds nothing, except this. I could be a very devious lawyer, and I might have a case for which I thought some funding was needed. So I might apply to the director of legal aid for special funding, knowing well that the case for which I am requesting funding is outside the legal aid scheme. The director of legal aid might say, ““There is nothing special about this; I am refusing it””. I might then make an application by way of judicial review to the court, and I would get legal aid for that: judicial review carries legal aid. So I would get my money by making an application to the court for judicial review to say, ““Look at this provision which the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, argues for: it is broad; it is wide; the circumstances of the country have improved; it is only reasonable that the director of legal aid should now grant me the funding that I need, or that the category of law with which I am now concerned should be brought within scope””. That is just one case. Other cases could then be brought forward in the same way.