Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

136: Clause 43, page 30, line 18, at end insert— ““( ) After subsection (7) insert— ““(8) The Lord Chancellor may by order prescribe that sections 58(4A) and (4B) and subsection (6) shall not apply to any conditional fee agreement where all of the following conditions are met— (a) the proceedings include a claim by an individual or group of individuals for damages, (b) the loss or injury allegedly caused has occurred in a developing country, (c) a judge of the High Court has certified, whether before or after the commencement of court proceedings, that— (i) the proposed litigation raises issues which ought, in the interests of justice, to be considered by a court in England and Wales; (ii) the resources of the proposed claimant or claimants are significantly less than those of the proposed defendant or defendants; and (iii) in the absence of the provisions of this subsection there would be a significant risk that the proposed claimant or claimants would be unable to secure effective legal representation in England or Wales. (9) In subsection (8) ““developing country”” means a country, not being a member state of the European Union, whose per capita gross national income was less than 50 per cent of the per capita gross national income of the United Kingdom in any of the three years prior to the year (or if more than one year, the first year) in which the injury or loss is alleged to have occurred.””.””