Mr Bob Ainsworth (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Coventry North East, Labour)

I am worried about the effect that various members of the family of the hon. Member for Spelthorne are having on our proceedings.

The hon. Member for Beaconsfield thought that I would say that the provision must be in current legislation, but I will not. With regard to his point about subsection (4), we are changing the current legislation. We are doing that because the PIU report elaborated on the fact that money held under restraint is frequently dissipated on legal fees.

If a restraint order has been obtained for the property held by a defendant, but no proceedings have yet been instituted, the court can order the release of money from funds held under restraint so that he can pay his legal costs. If those costs lead to the release of all his assets under restraint and he has no further funds, he should be eligible to apply for civil legal aid until the institution of proceedings.

If the money held under restraint is exhausted, it is unlikely that a case would remain that could deprive a defendant of his assets, and there would be no assets under restraint for him to contest. However, as a safeguard, we are arranging that in such circumstances the defendant could apply for civil legal aid prior to the institution of proceedings. The legislation does not at present provide for that, so we shall introduce an amendment to the Access to Justice Act 1999 in due course.

A person who holds a tainted gift and whose property is restrained will not be able to draw on a restrained asset or assets for his legal expenses, as that would lead to a variation of his restraint order. We intend that such a person should be eligible for civil legal aid under the normal rules, and we shall introduce an amendment to the 1999 Act to provide for that, too.

The court will continue to be able to release restrained assets to enable other third parties affected by a restraint order to contest it. In practice, other third parties rarely, if ever, make such applications, usually because the assets do not belong to them. However, if a third party wishes to make an application and the court is not prepared to release any frozen assets and the applicant has no other funds, we intend to make legal aid available under the usual conditions. Again, we shall introduce an amendment to the 1999 Act to provide for that.

The hon. Member for Spelthorne asked about the word ``reasonable''. It is for the court to decide what is reasonable, even if that might infringe indirectly on the hon. Gentleman's pocket. He rightly says that the Bill states that property under restraint cannot be removed from England and Wales. That covers all properties held by the defendant, wherever they are, but enforcement is a matter for each jurisdiction.

There will be the necessity for co-operation, and arrangements for that are in part 2 of the Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 42 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

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