Criminal Defence Service Bill [HL]

I am a huge fan of delegated powers. I will go through the amendments that the noble Lord has tabled, but we intend to accept all the proposals of the Select Committee on Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform. We will make the necessary amendments. The noble Lord strayed into the subject of Amendment No. 5 when he referred to the Crown Court. I am anxious not to pre-empt my great moment with that group. I hope that it will suffice at this stage if I say that I accept what the noble Lord says. I listened carefully to what the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, and other noble Lords said at Second Reading about their concerns about the introduction of such a scheme in the Crown Court. I will say more on that, but it should be in response to the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland. I shall clarify what we will bring forward and where, although we agree with the Select Committee on Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform, we do not propose to go any further than the Select Committee recommends. Paragraph 2A, as the noble Lord said, describes the criminal proceedings in which the Legal   Services Commission may grant or withdraw rights to representation. Paragraph 4 refers to appeals. Both are already subject to the affirmative resolution procedure—paragraph 4 through the Access to Justice Act 1999 and paragraph 2A through this Bill. As the noble Lord knows, the Select Committee on Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform examined the proposals and recommended that the first regulations should, as the noble Lord said, be subject to affirmative resolution. I intend to table an amendment to give effect to that recommendation on Report. We also noted that the Select Committee said that all other regulations, including those covered by paragraphs 2(1A) and 5(4), could be dealt with under the negative resolution procedure. As the noble Lord said, paragraph 2(1A) describes the circumstances in which the court, not the Legal Services Commission, has the power to grant representation. As those regulations are subsidiary to those made under paragraph 2A, I contend—the Delegated Powers Committee did not disagree—that they should be appropriate for the negative procedure. They do not have the same force and come as a subsidiary group. The noble Lord wishes, I think, to leave the question of the regulations that affect access to justice. We do not think that there is much need to change there. We read carefully what the Delegated Powers Committee said, and we concur with it. On the basis that I will   table amendments as the Delegated Powers Committee has asked us to and as we are about to discuss the issue of the Crown Court and the interests of justice issue, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw the amendment, at this stage anyway.