Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Debate between Baroness Grey-Thompson and Lord Goldsmith

Wednesday 7th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Grey-Thompson]

My Lords, I rise briefly in support of Amendment 11 because I covered the appeal process extensively during our debates on the Welfare Reform Bill. I completely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, who is absolutely right to say that the current proposals will represent the most major and life-changing reform to the welfare system. Her amendment offers some protection to ensure that the right people are supported. Both inside and outside your Lordships’ Chamber, we hear an awful lot about how we want to help and support disabled people. If we want to do so, this is our chance to prove it. I strongly support the amendment.

[Lord Goldsmith]

My Lords, I raised in Committee the issue of the advice sector and advice agencies, about which the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, has spoken. If one takes stock of where we have got to in this debate, in which there have been many speakers, one sees that everyone from every Bench has said that the Bill will not do and does not provide necessary support in the welfare area. I do not for a moment want to repeat the powerful speeches of the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, the noble Lord, Lord Newton, or others. The question is not, “Does the Bill need to be amended to deal with welfare benefit in some way?”; the question is, “How should it be amended?”.

I therefore want to speak to Amendment 101, which was seductively spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and the exceptional funds that we have been told about and, no doubt, will be told about. The fact in relation to the advice agencies—and I have explained my connection with them—is, as the Minister helpfully told me in a letter that is now in the Library, that the funding given to the not-for-profit sector will be cut by 77 per cent. That represents more than twice—nearly three times—the £20 million that the noble Lord talked about as an addition. The Advice Services Alliance estimates that 800 specialist advisers will be lost from the advice sector as a result. As many noble Lords have said—and from my experience as a lawyer it is true—it is important to bear in mind that the welfare benefit side requires an expertise that most lawyers do not have. It is also another reason why the argument sometimes put forward for the Bill—that it will reduce the fat cats—is completely lost. No cat gets fat on welfare law.

The questions are on whether the vague and hedged promises of some money are sufficient, and whether the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, is enough. For three reasons, I respectfully say that it is not. First, it is rather confusing. It divides into two parts. Proposed new subsection (1) mentions the Lord Chancellor having a power, as the noble Lord said. He may make funding available. That is a discretion. As we discussed in Committee, you cannot enforce a discretion; what the Lord Chancellor—or, as I rather mischievously suggested, the Chancellor of the Exchequer—decides to do determines what happens under that subsection. We have a new subsection proposed which states:

“The Lord Chancellor must make permanent arrangements for such purposes”,

and then specifies certain things. There are two problems with that. First, it appears to conflict with the first subsection, which identifies a discretion. Indeed, if you have to identify the hierarchy of the subsections, the first appears to be the most important, because proposed new subsection (2) says that the Lord Chancellor must make permanent arrangements “for such purposes”. “Such purposes” is a reference back to proposed new subsection (1), which is discretionary. So my first concern is that that does not impose a duty on anybody.