---

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

There is one question I would like to ask the noble and learned Baroness. I understand the point about time limits; I listened carefully to what was said about that. I tried to follow fully what she was saying and I think that, on the whole, I succeeded in doing that. However, she said—and I know that this can happen—that a woman subjected to domestic violence may do nothing about it at the time and then wants to bring it up, very properly, later on. I do not at the moment see where that situation is covered in her amendment. I can see the relevance of the time limit, but when the woman in question has not done anything about it at all—except suffered it, which is enough—I do not at the moment see that that situation is covered, unless it be of the type prescribed in regulations. That is an open-ended thing, but so far as the rest of it is concerned—having listened, I hope, carefully and understood fully, I think, what the noble and learned Baroness was saying—I have not quite grasped that particular point.