text_body: --- DIVISION TITLE ---
  
  Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill - Clause 12 - Legal Aid for Those in Custody
  
  --- MOTION EFFECT ---
  
  
  @ MP voted aye not to make legal aid available to advise and assist those held in custody and not to provide the option for making such legal aid means tested in the future.
  @ MP voted no to make legal aid available to fund advice and assistance for those held in custody and to provide the option for making such legal aid means tested in the future.
  
  The majority of MPs voted to make legal aid available to advise and assist those held in custody and to provide the option for making such legal aid means tested in the future.
  
  The amendment rejected in this vote was:
  
  :Amendment 116, page 8, line 29, leave out Clause 12.
  
  Clause 12[2] related to criminal legal aid was titled ''Advice and assistance for individuals in custody''. 
  
  Given clause 1 of the Bill required that Legal Aid be made available in accordance with Part I of the Bill; which contained clause 12 leaving out clause 12 would have had the effect of removing legal aid for advising and assisting those in custody.
  
  During the debate Michael Crockart MP[3], one of those who had put their names to the rejected amendment, spoke in favour of leaving out clause 12 stating:
  
  :Clause 12 provides the Secretary of State with the flexibility to subject legal aid in police stations to a system of means-testing.
  
  It appears the rationale for at least Mr Crockart's support for the amendment was related to opening up the possibility legal aid for those in custody could become means tested however the impact of the amendment would have been to remove the provision for legal aid funded advice and assistance to those in custody entirely. 
  
  Mr Crockart did not, in this amendment, propose any replacement for Clause 12, not did he seek to just remove the elements relating to means testing, the amendment voted on was to remove the whole clause.
  
  
  
  
  ==
  
  * [1] [http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2010-11/legalaidsentencingandpunishmentofoffenders.html Parliament's webpage on the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill (now an Act)] 
  * [2] [http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/2010-2012/0235/cbill_2010-20120235_en_2.htm#pt1-pb3-l1g12 Clause 12 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill as at the time of the vote]
  * [3] [http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2011-11-02a.951.4#g961.0 Michael Crockart MP (Edinburgh West, Liberal Democrat), House of Commons, 2 November 2011]
  
  --- COMMENTS AND NOTES ---
  
  (put thoughts and notes for other researchers here)
  