COMMONS AMENDMENT (Hansard, 14 July 1999)

§ The Lord Chancellor

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 51. With your Lordships' leave I will speak at the same time to Amendments Nos. 52, 129, 132 and 200.

Amendments Nos. 51 and 200 are technical amendments arising from the inter-relationship between this Bill and the Tax Credits Bill. As currently drafted, Clause 28 of this Bill amends the Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 1986 to allow advice and assistance to be provided without a means test or contributions to recipients of disability working allowance. That is already the case for recipients of family credit. It is also already the case for recipients of both benefits in England and Wales. The Tax Credits Bill provides for the replacement of family credit and disability working allowance by, respectively, working families' tax credit and disabled person's tax credit. That Bill also makes consequential amendments, including to the 1986 Act, in relation to family credit.

Amendment No. 51 replaces the term "disability working allowance" with disabled person's tax credit in Clause 28. Amendment No. 200 is a transitional provision to allow for the possibility that this Bill comes into force before the Tax Credits Bill.

Amendment No. 52 corrects an oversight regarding the availability of legal aid for references from the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission to the High Court in Scotland.

Amendments Nos. 129 and 132 are consequential on this new clause. I commend the amendments to the House.