Legal Aid: Social Welfare Law

Lord Bach Excerpts

Monday 5th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, the Government’s impact assessment for the LASPO Bill accepts that legal aid cuts will lead to “reduced social cohesion” and “increased criminality”. Can the Minister remind the House how many Bills go forward when it is thought that their implementation will lead to “reduced social cohesion” and “increased criminality”, and why do the Government think that this measure will lead to “increased criminality”?

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, one problem with treating Parliament as a group of grown-ups is that such exercises will be open to abuse. The Government have never said that this would happen. What the civil servants did, quite properly, in their impact assessment was put forward a range of possibilities. Throughout the Bill—and I presume now that we are moving to Report he will continue on his merry way—the noble Lord has been looking at worst-case scenarios, saying that worst-case scenarios are inevitable and therefore, “Woe is me”. That is not what the impact assessment is about. It is about trying to take an intelligent and rational view, but, as I have said before, a view that these are not inevitable. This impact assessment is not an almanac; it is a look at a range of options that could happen. As such, it was a reasonable way of approaching the task ahead.