Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Wednesday 14th March 2012 Lords Chamber

As I indicated, we do not believe that it is appropriate to put these provisions in the Bill. There is a precedent for the 10 per cent uplift being taken forward by the senior judiciary, and we would look to that happening in this case. I also give an assurance that QOCS will be brought in at the same time as Part 2 of the Bill, so the flexibility that will go along with having it in the rules will certainly outweigh the advantages of having it in primary legislation. We also believe that the extent of the noble Lord’s amendment is far too wide. For these reasons, I invite him to withdraw it.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, before the noble and learned Lord sits down, perhaps I may ask whether he has considered the position of two groups of families who may be considering making civil claims against the Government following inquests. I refer to the families of members of the Armed Forces and of those who die in either police custody or prison.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, this may not be quite what the noble Lord was thinking about, but in some cases, as my noble friend Lord Faulks indicated, if there is a question of a claim following a bereavement, we have indicated that we intend that there should be an uplift in these cases.

On the question of why we are not introducing QOCS for judicial review claims—this may be the circumstance to which the noble Lord was referring—the responses to the consultation indicated that conditional fee agreements were less commonly used outside the area of personal injury and were not frequently used in judicial review proceedings.