§ The Solicitor?General (Mr. Ross Cranston)I beg to move amendment No. 12, in page 9, line 32, leave out
'cases in which services have been'and insert'relation to proceedings in which services are'.
Mr. Deputy SpeakerWith this, it will be convenient to discuss Government amendments Nos. 13 to 16 and 21.
§ The Solicitor-GeneralThis group of drafting amendments is consequential to an amendment made in Committee to what is now clause 11(1). Clause 11 deals with the award of costs between the parties in cases involving community legal service funding. It gives assisted persons broadly the same statutory protection against costs as exists now. Clause 11(1) was amended in Committee to provide for that protection to be disapplied in prescribed circumstances, to make it clear that it applied only when the assisted person was receiving funding, and generally to simplify the drafting of the subsection. The amendments are consequential on that simplification. Amendments Nos. 12 and 13 simply ensure the consistent use of tenses throughout the clause.
Amendments Nos. 14 and 15 rephrase and reposition clause 11(4)(c), which deals with the payment of costs by the Legal Services Commission to the opponent of an assisted person. At present, a court can order the Legal Aid Board to pay an opposing defendant's costs if he or 997 she would otherwise suffer severe financial hardship. Regulations that are contemplated under the Bill will broadly replicate that position although the Government hope to relax the test to plain financial hardship.
It is necessary to rephrase the paragraph to refer to the costs incurred by the opponent, rather than those ordered against the assisted person; otherwise, the costs that the commission could be ordered to pay would be limited by the protection enjoyed by the assisted person. That anomaly did not arise with the previous drafting of clause 11(1).
Amendments Nos. 16 and 21 are consequential on the repositioning of clause 11(4)(c). The latter ensures that regulations under that paragraph remain subject to the affirmative procedure.
§ Amendment agreed to.
§
Amendments made: No. 13, in page 9, line 36, leave out 'the services were funded,' and insert
'services are funded by the Commission as part of the Community Legal Service,'.
§ No. 14, in page 9, leave out lines 40 and 41.
§
No. 15, in page 9, line 44, at end insert—
'(da) requiring the payment by the Commission of the whole or part of any costs incurred by a party for whom services are not funded by the Commission as part of the Community Legal Service,'.
§
No. 16, in page 9, line 46, leave out 'such a party' and insert
'a party for whom services are so funded'.—[Mr. Vaz.]