Minister demands review of legal aid cuts after report reveals vulnerable children denied justice

The family justice minister has demanded an urgent review into the government’s legal aid cuts after a report by the children’s commissioner revealed that vulnerable children were being denied legal representation and access to their rights.

Rules on children’s rights enshrined in United Nations conventions are being broken, according to the research from the children’s commissioner, Maggie Atkinson, because children are understandably unable to navigate complex legal procedures without the help of trained lawyers. As The Guardian reports, Atkinson revealed the alarming fact that children’s legitimate claims for housing, welfare and other cases are being denied because the children do not have the necessary legal expertise to beat the callously hostile bureaucracies overseeing the claims.

The report has also revealed the rift in priorities among the different factions of the Tory-led coalition government. In response the Liberal Democrat family justice minister, Simon Hughes, has called for an urgent review into the gaps left by the legal aid cuts overseen by his Conservative colleague, the justice minister Chris Grayling, the first non-lawyer and therefore the least formally qualified person to hold the position in centuries. Hughes is reported to have released his statement without giving Grayling advance notice, while he also wrote to Grayling demanding that the latter uphold his apparent promise to review legal aid if it became clear that the cuts were leaving vulnerable people exposed.

Hughes said in his statement: "I have asked the Ministry of Justice to review the findings in this report. We have had to make difficult decisions to protect legal aid for the long term, but this shouldn’t be at the expense of the rights of children. If there are gaps in the new system I am determined they are addressed urgently."