Legal aid bill: government considers further concessions

http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2012/feb/02/legal-aid-bill-concessions

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Further concessions may be made by the government on controversial areas of the legal aid bill, the minister steering the legislation through parliament signalled on Thursday.

Addressing a legal conference in Westminister, justice minister Jonathan Djanogly also conceded that he was uncertain about the precise costs and benefits of the reforms.

The legal aid, sentencing and punishment of offenders bill (Laspo), currently going through a hostile committee stage in the Lords, is supposed to save the government £350m a year.

Last week the government abandoned a clause that would have given police officers the power to subject suspects held in police stations to means testing before they could see a lawyer.

Having suffered heavy defeats in the Lords over the welfare reform bill, the government now appears eager to avoid further embarrassing reversals that could raise fresh questions about the House of Lords' role as a chamber for conducting detailed reviews of legislation.

"Laspo is nearing its conclusion in Lords committee stage," Djanogly told a Westminster Legal Policy Forum meeting. "I have been watching the debate. The government continues to listen as the bill goes through the house. We have signalled our intention to withdraw [means testing of suspects in police stations]. We are also actively considering other amendments in the Lords ... [but] the key tenets of the bill must be maintained."

One of the more controversial consequences of the bill is that legal aid will be withdrawn in future for children involved in medical negligence cases. The former cabinet minister Norman Tebbit is among those who have tabled an amendment opposing that aspect of the bill.

In reference to his amendment, Djanogly said: "There are various things we are looking at in the margins coming out of the Lords debate. There's a very small proportion of personal injury cases that attract legal aid, namely for clinical negligence … that makes up less than 1% of personal injury cases."

Another contentious area of the bill is the definition of domestic violence that would entitle victims to claim legal aid. Djanogly said he did not believe that the bill's definition was essentially different to that used by the Association of Chief Police Officers. "I don't think there's a difference and if there's a way of making people [accept that] I hope we will be able to go with that."

On the effects of the changes in the bill, the minister said: " … I recognise there's a degree of uncertainty in the costs and benefits in their impacts" but, he added, it was right to pursue reforms that would result in fewer confrontational court cases and more mediation to solve disputes.