The director of law reform and human rights organisation Justice has condemned the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill as ‘so bad’ that it will not survive if it is enacted.
Roger Smith (pictured) described the package of reforms in the bill, which seeks to save money by removing legal aid for many areas of law, as ‘unsustainable’. He told a Westminster Legal Policy Forum event on the future of legal aid that the bill would roll back the legal advice system to the 1970s.
He highlighted as ‘outrageous’ the lack of independence of the proposed director of legal aid casework, who will make funding decisions in the name of the minister - including in cases where the minister is a party. Such a weakness would be a ‘godsend’ to lawyers, who will be able to challenge decisions and argue bias in the process in cases taken against the government.
Smith said the proposed power in the bill to allow the government to use secondary legislation to reduce the scope of legal aid, but not to increase it, is administratively absurd. He concluded that it is a ‘lousily drafted bill, with lousy policies, under which people will suffer. It’s been made in a hurry and it will not survive’.
Plaid Cymru MP Elfyn Llwyd, who sits on the Commons justice committee, told the meeting: ‘The bill is entirely cost-driven, but takes no account of the cost of human suffering that will flow from it.’ Justice minister Jonathan Djanogly told delegates that the government is ‘actively considering’ some amendments, but ‘remains firmly wedded to the aims of the bill, so the key tenets must be maintained.’
The House of Lords is currently considering the sentencing proposals in part 3 of the bill.
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