Royal assent has been given to the Legal Aid: Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act (LASPO) 2012, which removes legal aid from a series of welfare issues.
Aid will be removed for cases concerning most welfare benefits cases (except for welfare benefits appeals in the Upper Tribunal and higher courts).employment, housing (except in cases involving homelessness or risk to health and safety) and debt (except in cases relating to certain proceedings where the home is at risk).
The Act introduces a wide range of reforms to the justice system as well as delivering structural reforms to the administration of legal aid.
It makes makes provisions about:
•legal aid
•the funding of legal services
•the costs and other amounts awarded in civil and criminal proceedings
•sentencing offenders
•penalty notices for disorderly behaviour and cautions
•new offences of threatening with a weapon in public or on school premises.
