Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Debate between Lord Elystan-Morgan and Lord Clinton-Davis

Tuesday 10th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

I, too, support the amendment that has been moved with such clarity by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham. An expert is not a luxury. Irrespective of how conscientious, patient and thorough a judge may be, there are many technical issues on which he would be lost in coming to a proper, conclusive determination of the case without expert evidence to assist him.

In some cases there will be privately paid experts and no expert on the other side. How can there be an equality of arms in such a situation? Without elaborating on the case that has been properly put by the noble Lord, I would urge on Her Majesty’s Government a consideration that the denial of an expert in a proper case is a denial of justice and, more often than not, may not be a saving in net financial terms.

We shall deal later with other amendments on savings. The Government believe that they can save £350 million through the changes proposed in this part of the Bill. The Law Society, very conscientiously, has drawn up a plan suggesting that £375 million could be saved in a totally different way. I appreciate that there are conscientious and genuine differences as to these opinions but I have no doubt that much of the saving which, on the face of it, appears to be attractive in this situation of financial stringency, may very well not be a saving in actuality.

The diminution in the fees of experts was an extremely retrograde step. There was no justification for it and it will reduce the availability of experts. I speak as one who sat for many years in the family jurisdiction in North Wales, where one had to go far afield for experts in the Manchester and Liverpool areas. One was at the end of the queue and had to wait for months before an expert was available. Diminish that availability and you will add to an injustice that already exists.

[Lord Clinton-Davis]

The consortium has opined that deleterious effects will follow the Government’s proposals. It says that the standards and availability of experts will disappear or be badly affected. The Committee is entitled to know—I hope the Minister will discharge this in his speech—what meetings have taken place with the consortium. What are the effects? Are the Government closing their mind entirely to the representations that are being made?

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Elystan-Morgan and Lord Clinton-Davis

Monday 10th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, I make no apology for speaking briefly from these Benches. I do not believe that it is proper to criticise the detailed approach to this question of many Members of this House. If we did not give the matter our deepest thought and most conscientious consideration, we would have no right to call ourselves a reviewing Chamber.

I follow very much the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Desai, in regarding the amendment as a breath of fresh air, sanity and common sense. I suppose that every Member of this Chamber would accept the proposition that the mother of Parliaments, when considering a totally new regime relating to so many aspects of its life, deserves the best and most assiduous efforts that we can imagine. In other words, we should not approach any one of these problems in a piecemeal way. Nor should we think of a final solution to any of these matters. These are immense problems and we should not think in terms of any ultimate solution save after carrying out the most detailed and assiduous scrutiny of all possibilities that are open.

[Lord Clinton-Davis]

Is it not extraordinary that not one word has been heard today from the coalition Benches on this vital issue?

Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Elystan-Morgan and Lord Clinton-Davis

Tuesday 23rd November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, may I mention two matters very briefly? The first is the matter that was dealt with so magnificently by my noble and learned friend Lord Woolf. It seems to me that only an insensitive Government would even contemplate putting in any one of those schedules quasi-judicial bodies that are so central in their very existence and purpose to the administration of justice. There is no justification whatever for allowing them to remain in that particular jeopardy; they should be inviolate; they should be free from any prospect of ministerial diktat.

The second matter is the wider point of the issue that is before the Committee. Many people will say that they think the issue is whether Ministers should have the right and power to deal in such a savagely surgical way with 481 public bodies. No, that is not the issue. The issue is not the question of the conflict between Ministers and those bodies but that between the Executive and the sovereignty of Parliament. The question is whether those Ministers should have the power to strike down all those masses of legislative developments that have led to the very creation of those bodies in the first place. That is the issue. If I may make a biblical reference, I would say that the proposal is almost an Armageddon issue.

Henry VIII clauses are nothing new. About 80 years ago, Sir Gordon Hewart, a former Attorney-General who later became Lord Chief Justice, wrote a book called The New Despotism, whose title refers to the use of such clauses. Over the past 80 years, there has been a massive growth in the use of Henry VIII clauses such that we have now reached the point at which Parliament must either say no and call a halt to their use or allow the situation to develop ever further and thereby corrupt even the existence of Parliament.

[Lord Clinton-Davis]

I would like to say a few words, so I propose to speak for about two minutes.

I think that the indictment that the noble Lords, Lord Lester and Lord Pannick, have mounted today is worthy not only of the agreement of the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, to their amendments but of his agreement to the withdrawal of the Bill. We have been especially fortunate to hear the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, give a devastating denunciation of the Bill today that ought to be heard by those on the government Benches.

We all have a great affection for the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, who has done an enormous amount to try to improve the unimprovable. The Minister has made some gallant efforts, but the best thing that he could do, in my view, is to withdraw the Bill and enable the House to consider afresh what ought to be done.

I simply want to underline my concerns as a solicitor. Amendment 175 interprets some crucial and important points that the Government have neglected. To confer upon Ministers the powers that the Government currently contemplate in the Bill is unworthy. The limitations that are provided for in the amendment are really crucial, so I hope that the Government will take those into account properly in their consideration of what has been said.