Clause 1 - Lord Chancellor’s functions
Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders bill
10:15 am
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith, Labour)
I do not use that Act in my argument on scope; I use it in my argument on structure. The Access to Justice Act 1999 was described, albeit by the Minister moving the motion on Second Reading, as
“the most important legal reform of the past 50 years.”
That is right, because, as he went on to say,
“for the first time, we will assess the need for legal and advice services and develop the provision of such help in response to that need.”
That was a significant change. It certainly set alarm bells ringing for the current Attorney-General, who leapt up and said that the Government’s approach would mean that
“the state will now choose which forms of litigation it considers socially desirable and therefore worthy of support… Is that a desirable development in a free society?”—[Official Report, 14 April 1999; Vol. 329, c. 230-33.]
He might have exaggerated slightly in saying that the Act would lead us all into totalitarianism.