contribution by Will Horwitz

The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill returns reaches Report stage in the Commons this week.

And before the eye-catching business of knife crime sentences and no-win-no-fee solicitors comes up on Tuesday and Wednesday, we get legal aid and the possibility of a Lib Dem rebellion.

Public opposition to the legal aid changes has crystallised around a few issues:

- that victims of domestic violence will be denied legal help with civil cases against abusers;
- the danger, particularly for disabled people, of withdrawing all legal help with welfare benefits just as the system undergoes fundamental reform;
- the loss of help for victims of clinical negligence.

A group of amendments put by Liberal Democrat back benchers, which cover benefits and clinical negligence amongst other issues, should lead to a good debate and if put to a vote will test the resolve of several Lib Dem and Conservative MPs who have locally and publicly stated their opposition to many of these aspects of the Bill (here are just four) .

Also keep an eye out for government announcing more details of the £20m fund for the not-for-profit advice sector, which Ken Clarke unveiled (with no detail) at the Bill’s last appearance before the whole house.

This is a Big Society danger for government: social welfare advice – on issues like benefits, debt, housing, and employment – is taking a particularly bad hit, and is mostly delivered by much-cherished charities such as Citizens Advice Bureaux and Law Centres.

The £20m is government’s defence but from what we know so far is mostly a smokescreen – it was supposed to be spent this financial year (the legal aid cuts don’t even come in until next) and is so far only a one off.

That’s why details of the cross government ‘review’ that was supposed to accompany the fund will be vital – a long term plan for the sector, which has traditionally scraped together funding from different government departments with little coordination, is going to be more important in the long run than a one-off £20m.

Finally, watch out for practical difficulties to emerge as an already hugely expensive and cumbersome system for administering legal aid (costing £126m a year) struggles to deal with small numbers of cases still eligible.

Justice for All found that in a third of the country there will be so few housing and debt cases left that it won’t be worthwhile employing one full-time advisor.

The Law Society and others have regularly pointed out that government could make the savings they want without restricting access to legal help, by cutting administration costs and inefficiencies elsewhere in the system.

Hopes aren’t high that government will concede this anytime soon, but practical delivery issues might force them to try something new eventually.

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Will Horwitz is part of the Justice for All campaign

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