Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Debate between Lord Morris of Aberavon and Lord Clinton-Davis

Tuesday 10th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clinton-Davis]

The consortium has opined that deleterious effects will follow the Government’s proposals. It says that the standards and availability of experts will disappear or be badly affected. The Committee is entitled to know—I hope the Minister will discharge this in his speech—what meetings have taken place with the consortium. What are the effects? Are the Government closing their mind entirely to the representations that are being made?

[Lord Morris of Aberavon]

My Lords, a range of issues could be raised under the amendment, which I support. It is self-evident—it speaks for itself—that there should be accessibility to and a maintained quality of expert evidence. For justice to be done, it frequently turns on the quality and persuasive ability of the expert who is giving evidence.

We are debating the generality of the need for expert evidence. When we come to clinical negligence, we will return to more specific questions about the need to maintain particular panels. People in this field are highly respected and in very great demand, and frequently the problem is to lay one’s hands on someone who can deal with your specific problem. When I was a very young man, for a very short time I had something to do with mining cases in south Wales—a very long time ago—where the quality of the experts on both sides of the mining industry ensured that justice was done because the judges frequently knew many of the experts. The experts were well qualified on both sides. More often than not, cases were settled in view of the nature of the expert evidence that had been tendered, and that saved individuals and the state a great deal of money.