Late changes will not be enough to soften the blow of pending change for vulnerable clients, says Jon Robins
Now the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act (LASPO) has reached the statute book after some 18 long months of lobbying and campaigning, what ground have the ministers given? LASPO was “an attack on poor people, the vulnerable and disabled: the people who cannot answer back”, Lord Bach said last month as the then Bill completed its passage through Parliament.
Bill bashing
LASPO received an unprecedented bashing at the hands of peers. I spoke to Lord Bach in the House of Lords’ canteen immediately after the final debate. Lord David Pannick had that afternoon told fellow peers that the Bill had been made “marginally better” by amendments (and would have been “marginally better” still had Pannick’s own amendment establishing access to justice as a constitutional principle been accepted). It remained “a bad Bill”, he said.
Lord Bach said that there were parts of the Legal Aid Act (those relating to the removal of social welfare law) that were “not
