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Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

My Lords, the Minister said that financial privilege is not a matter for the Government but for the House of Commons. We understand—we are very familiar with the convention—that when the House of Commons rejects a Lords' amendment it may state reasons of financial privilege and give no further explanation. However, that does not explain or justify why the Minister, Mr Djanogly, in opening the debate on the Lords' Amendment 1 last Tuesday, began his speech by drawing to the attention of the other place that: "““Lords amendments 1 and 24 impinge on the financial privilege of this House. I ask the House to disagree to them and will ask the Reasons Committee to ascribe financial privilege as the reason for doing so””.—[Official Report, Commons, 17/4/12; col. 200.]" That was his argument, essentially because he could not think of a better one. It is very unusual for the Government to rely blatantly on financial privilege during the debate. We have to contend with a new situation. We are not criticising the constitutional arrangements, the conventions or the manner of the relationship between the two Houses, but we are saying that the Government should not hide behind this formula, this antique convention, but should deal fairly and squarely with the merits of the argument.