§ Mr. DrewTo ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs if he will make a statement on the implementation of the Public Defender System. [172992]
§ Mr. LammyIn order to assess better the performance of the Public Defender Service (PDS) the Legal Services Commission (LSC), with the agreement of Ministers, increased the number of PDS offices from six to eight in 2003. Ministers will make a decision on the future of the PDS in the light of the research at the end of 2005. There722W are no current plans to open further offices but the Government and the LSC have always said that the PDS provides a flexible option to deliver criminal defence services where existing provision is low, or of poor quality.