The legal aid, sentencing and punishment of offenders bill suffered 11 defeats in the House of Lords, far more than the controversial NHS reform bill that was recently signed into law.

The bill came back to the House of Commons on Tuesday, and the government announced that it was prepared to accept three of the amendments but would seek to disagree the other eight. It has agreed to accept that the new director of legal aid casework should be independent; that legal aid should be preserved for appeals to the upper tribunal, court of appeal or supreme court in welfare benefits cases; and to amend the bill’s definition of domestic violence. Read the full story

When the Justice Secretary launched his green paper proposing swingeing cuts in legal aid it looked as if not–for-profit advice centres, such as the Citizens Advice Bureaux (CAB), which draw much of their funding from the legal aid budget, would suffer severe collateral damage. Read the full story

At the moment, anyone is entitled to free advice in the police station if they are arrested. For minor cases they may get only telephone advice, for more serious cases they get a lawyer in the police station for any interview. The universal right to representation by a solicitor at a police station was enshrined in Read the full story