Authors:LAG
Created:2013-01-01
Last updated:2023-09-18
Government defeat on legal aid for benefit cases
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Administrator
Peers have delivered a rare defeat to the coalition government on draft regulations to implement the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders (LASPO) Act 2012. The government had proposed that the First-tier Tribunal would identify the areas of law in its own decisions on which welfare benefits appeals could be brought, but welfare rights experts warned that this would lead to very few cases being supported by legal aid (see October 2012 Legal Action 4).
In last month’s debate on the draft Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (Amendment of Schedule 1) Order 2012, Labour peer Lord Bach argued that the government’s proposal did not meet the assurances which had been given by ministers when the LASPO Bill was debated during its passage through parliament (see Hansard HL Debates cols 464–491, 3 December 2012). They had promised a system of independent review to decide if, in an appeal, cases should be backed by legal aid. Liberal Democrat peer Baroness Doocey, supported the little-used ‘fatal’ amendment proposed by Lord Bach: she warned that the government’s current proposals ‘will be catastrophic for many thousands of people’, and went on to add: ‘the government are effectively denying legal help to a significant proportion of disabled people whose appeal cases could nonetheless be considered to raise a point of law.’
Justice minister Lord McNally said that while the government had listened to the points which were made by peers during the debate, it had no intention of making a further concession on welfare benefits cases and had to stick with the planned cost cuts of £350m. After the debate, Lord Bach told Legal Action: ‘The government should accept this defeat and come back with a plan to properly implement what they agreed to do, which is to grant legal aid to assist the many disabled and other vulnerable people who are forced into bringing tribunal claims.’