Legal aid cuts have “overwhelmingly affected the poor and people with disabilities”, says UN poverty envoy

A UN envoy appointed to report on extreme poverty and human rights in the UK has criticised the government’s cuts to legal aid, which have deprived poor and disabled people of their rights.

Professor Philip Alston said that cuts to legal aid introduced by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO) have “overwhelmingly affected the poor and people with disabilities, many of whom cannot otherwise afford to challenge benefit denials or reductions and are thus effectively deprived of their human rights to a remedy…[LASPO has] gutted the scope of cases that are handled, ratcheted up the level of means-tested eligibility criteria, and substituted telephonic for many previously face-to-face advice services".

Alston’s fact-finding mission saw him listen to the concerns of vulnerable people across England and Wales. He criticised the Conservative government’s austerity policies, which have cut public services – including legal aid – and welfare provisions, making the poverty he witnessed “a political choice” rather than a necessity, in his view. He said: “Austerity could easily have spared the poor, if the political will had existed to do so. Resources were available to the Treasury at the last budget that could have transformed the situation of millions of people living in poverty, but the political choice was made to fund tax cuts for the wealthy instead.” The government is in “a state of denial” about the effects of its policies on the poor, he said.

Homelessness has doubled since the Conservatives came to power in 2010 and the use of food banks has risen sharply, while 14 million people – a fifth of the population – are now living in poverty, with the majority in employment. Meanwhile, 1.5 million people were destitute at some point in 2017, meaning that they lived on less than £70 a week or went without essentials such as food, housing, clothing or heating.

Government ministers led by new Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd have reacted angrily to Alston’s criticisms, criticising his “political” language and insisting that their policies are right for the country.