Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, when speaking to the first series of amendments, the noble Lord, Lord Bach, continues to jab away at the broad architecture of these reforms. In these reforms we do not accept every last jot and tittle of Lord Justice Jackson’s report but, in the main, we accept its major thrust. It is a package of reforms and we are concerned not to dismantle it by accepting this series of amendments. The reasons for that are clear. The Jackson report was motivated not by government initiative but by judicial demand. Both the Master of the Rolls and the Lord Chief Justice wanted to look at a dangerous inflation in civil costs which in their view—a view that we share—was having an impact on access to justice. Whether there was or is a compensation culture, we can debate for a very long time, but we know that in many parts of the law there has been a quite worrying inflation in costs. A number of examples given by noble Lords on all sides suggest that action is needed. The Official Opposition’s view on the Jackson report was not clear from the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Bach—he said that he did not agree with this bit of it. The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, looks like a greyhound in the traps, but perhaps at the end of the debate he can tell us his party’s general approach to Jackson.