JustRights campaign update

Dear JustRights supporters,

With the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders (LASPO) Bill proceeding apace through Parliament, we wanted to update you on the progress of our campaign to protect children and young people under the age of 25 from the proposed cuts to legal aid.

LASPO Bill timetable
Commons Report stage – 24th to 26th October
Third Commons reading – 26th October
First Lords reading – 27th October
Second Lords reading – 16th November

Commons Report stage & 3rd Reading


For this stage of the Bill, which takes place next week, we have decided to focus on an amendment we have proposed that would retain legal aid for all children under the age of 18 who are currently entitled. We are awaiting confirmation from MPs (on both the Labour and Lib Dem sides) that they will table the amendment.

We hope to send out a briefing to MPs tomorrow. We will try our utmost to send it to you in advance for your comments and approval, but will assume you’re happy to continue to be listed on our briefings as a supporter of JustRights unless we hear from you.

House of Lords

Campaigners against the Bill had few genuine hopes of gaining significant concessions during the Commons stages of the Bill, but hopes are somewhat greater for the Lords. We have already had contact with a potentially influential Lib Dem lawyers group in the Lords who are very concerned about the Bill. The first reading of the Bill in the Lords is expected to be a formality, so we will be focussing our efforts more on the second reading stage. We have yet to decide on our precise tactics for the second reading, so feel free to make suggestions.

We also hope to hold a roundtable event to inform peers of the impact of the Bill on children and young people. We will let you know more once this is confirmed.

Data obtained through Parliamentary Questions and Freedom of Information requests
The Government has released a lot of useful data on legal aid for children and young people thanks to PQs and FoI requests made by JustRights and others. We will compile this, so that you can make use of it in your own campaigning and lobbying. If you’re looking for data in the meantime, get in touch and we’ll see if we can help.

New JustRights reports on crime

We are planning to publish a new report on the links between young people’s civil justice problems and crime, in order to highlight the knock-on impact on the criminal justice system of cuts to civil legal aid. The report has been commissioned on behalf of JustRights by the Law Centres Federation and Youth Access, and has been written by Professor Pascoe Pleasence, ex-Head of the Legal Services Research Centre and the pre-eminent academic in the legal advice sector. We will also be publishing a separate policy briefing summarising the key findings from Professor Pleasence’s report and other evidence on the subject. We hope to work with The Howard League on a media strategy about this issue and would be keen to work with other JustRights supporters. In particular, please let us know if you have any case studies of young people who have been averted from crime thanks to civil legal advice – or who received legal advice too late, after they had already been in trouble with the law.

As ever, please let us know what you’re up to if you’re carrying out your own campaigning and lobbying. And don’t hesitate to ask us if you think we might be able to help.

Best wishes,

James, Mandy & Kate


James Kenrick
Co-Chair of JustRights
Email: james@youthaccess.org.uk
Tel: 020 8772 9900 Mandy Wilkins
Co-Chair of JustRights

Email: mandy@lawcentres.org.uk
Tel: 020 7842 0725 Kate Bell
JustRights’ Parliamentary Adviser
Email: kategobell@hotmail.com
Tel: 07823 770 425