Solicitors have welcomed opposition amendments to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill tabled this week, but warned that debate on access to justice issues could be drowned out if MPs choose to focus on sentencing reform as a result of political priorities.
Legal Action Group director Steve Hynes said too little time had been scheduled for the House of Commons scrutiny committee to debate the bill, which covers far-reaching reforms to civil litigation costs, sentencing and legal aid.
He said: ‘Politicians are obsessed with the punishment of offenders and they will focus on the sentencing proposals in an attempt to get the tabloid headlines, at the expense of debate on the legal aid and costs reforms which affect access to justice.’
Labour MPs have tabled a series of amendments to the bill. A Labour spokesman said its strategy was to seek to ‘embarrass’ Liberal Democrat MPs into voting against the reforms.
In particular, the Labour amendments call for the rules underpinning conditional fee agreements to remain unchanged in cases involving multi-national corporations, serious professional or clinical negligence, judicial review, insolvency, and privacy cases such as the recent phone-hacking claims.
‘We want to ask the Lib Dems to re-examine their consciences and ask if they really can deny these people access to justice,’ said a Labour spokesman.
In relation to legal aid, Labour MPs have tabled an amendment to return into the scope of legal aid the large areas of law that the government has sought to exclude, including welfare benefits, clinical negligence, disability, education and housing law.
They are seeking to ensure that all cases brought on behalf of children are eligible for legal aid, suggesting that this move would only cost £10m.
Labour has also tabled an amendment seeking a ‘gold standard’ definition of domestic violence, in line with that used by the Association of Chief Police Officers, and not limited to physical violence.
On wider issues concerning funding decisions and the powers and duties of the secretary of state for justice, Labour wants to see the introduction of an independent tribunal to review the decisions made on behalf of the secretary of state to refuse legal aid.
Its amendments will also seek to place a duty on the secretary of state to consider the viability of the advice sector generally, imposing a mandatory duty under law to promote an adequate supply of advice when considering policy and practice.
The Public Bill Committee is expected to report to the House of Commons by 13 October, but has only a limited number of sessions in which to debate the amendments before a third reading in the lower house.
The bill will then be debated in the House of Lords. Legal Aid Practitioners Group director Carol Storer welcomed the amendments, which she said would ‘ameliorate the worst effects of the bill’.
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