Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Wednesday 10th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness. I know that this was part of the Liberal Democrat manifesto. It is a matter on which, at the moment, we have no plans to legislate. The Liberal Democrat manifesto contains a number of wise things, including the suggestion that we should,

“develop a strategy that will deliver advice and legal support to help people with everyday problems like personal debt and social welfare issues”.

I entirely agree with that.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords—

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords—

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)]

My Lords, if we follow the convention that it is important that all groups get a turn in each Question, we have not heard from the Cross-Benchers, so I suggest that we hear from the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

My Lords, are the Government looking at the way in which exceptional circumstances are being dealt with? There is a lot of criticism that they are not being properly dealt with. Will they look at that, if they are not already doing so?

[Lord Faulks]

I think that the noble and learned Baroness is referring to exceptional funding provisions. There has been less take-up than was originally anticipated, but I am glad to say that the percentage of applications that are granted has greatly increased since April 2013 and is now 25%. That probably reflects the fact that there is a better understanding in the legal profession about exactly what the exceptional funding is supposed to cover, which is a potential breach of convention obligations or EU law. I do not think that I can comment further because the matter is the subject of a judicial review which we are resisting strongly.