Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Baroness Buscombe Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

I think the noble Lord protests too much. I was explaining to him the motivations of the previous Government for bringing in the Proceeds of Crime Act.

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, I was the shadow Minister on the Proceeds of Crime Bill. I have rather a good memory, and I can say that the Minister is absolutely accurate in his comments about why the Government chose not to use the Proceeds of Crime Act as an opportunity for dealing with this issue.

[Lord Bach]

It is very good to have the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, joining the debate, but if that was the best defence that the previous Government could put up for that, it was really not satisfactory. I remind the Minister that that argument has been described as,

“fallacious, and easily remedied by the simple implementation of a cap on defence fees, careful supervision by the court and/or an assessment by the court taxing officers, who are familiar with assessing what constitutes ‘reasonable’ costs in such cases”.

If that was the argument put forward by my Government at that time, I say here and now that it was a fallacious argument and not one that the present Government should fall into the trap of adopting.