The House of Lords further amended the Legal Aid, Sentencing and
Punishment of Offenders Bill this week, following our public
campaign and behind the scenes pressure. Unless overturned in the
Commons, sufferers of respiratory and other industrial diseases
caused by employer negligence will be exempt from reforms to
conditional fee agreements (CFAs).
Peers have this week completed the report stage debates on parts
1 (legal aid) and 2 (civil litigation funding) of the Legal Aid,
Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill.
In a short debate on Monday, which focused on the legal aid
aspects in part 1 of the bill, peers discussed legal aid for
immigration, debt, employment and housing cases with many making
the case for retaining legal aid in these areas. However, there
were no government defeats.
On Wednesday the government suffered three further defeats in
the House of Lords, bringing the total number of government defeats
to nine so far.
During Wednesday's debate peers completed their discussions on
part 1 of the bill by voting to remove the provisions in the bill
which would have enabled the government to make the telephone
advice service the sole means of accessing legal aid services, and
instead inserted an obligation to provide a plurality of means of
accessing legal aid.
Peers then moved on to part 2 of the bill, which seeks to
implement some elements of Lord Justice Jackson's recommendations
on civil litigation funding.
In the first part of the debate a number of amendments,
including suggestions from the Law Society, intended to put
qualified one-way costs shifting (QOCS) and the proposed ten per
cent uplift in general damages on to the face of the bill. Despite
wide-ranging support from across the House, the government narrowly
won a vote in relation to these amendments.
Peers then moved on to discuss a series of amendments seeking to
exempt certain types of case from the proposed non-recoverability
rules relating to success fees and after the event (ATE) premiums.
In two late night votes, the government was twice defeated on an
exemption for industrial respiratory diseases, such as mesothelioma
and for industrial disease cases more generally.