UN expert highlights impact of legal aid cuts in helping cause “misery for millions”

The United Nations’ (UN) expert on poverty and human rights has highlighted cuts to legal aid among the government policies causing “the systematic immiseration of millions across Great Britain”.

Philip Alston, the special rapporteur sent by the UN to report on poverty in the UK, said that “access to the courts for lower-income groups has been dramatically rolled back by cuts to legal aid,” meaning that problems that could have been solved with legal representation have been left to fester.

His report continues: “The Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 made most housing, family and benefits cases ineligible for aid; ratcheted up eligibility criteria; and replaced many face-to-face advice services with telephone lines.

“Consequently, the number of civil legal aid cases declined by a staggering 82% between 2010–2011 and 2017–2018. As a result, many poor people are unable to effectively claim and enforce their rights, have lost access to critical support, and some have even reportedly lost custody of their children. Lack of access to legal aid also exacerbates extreme poverty, since justiciable problems that could have been resolved with legal representation go unaddressed.”

The government has expressed fury at Alston’s findings, with the Department for Work and Pensions calling them “barely believable”, but the UN official stands by his research. He said: “[In the UK] there are 14 million people living in poverty, record levels of hunger and homelessness, falling life expectancy for some groups, ever fewer community services, and greatly reduced policing…The imposition of austerity was an ideological project designed to radically reshape the relationship between the government and the citizenry.

“UK standards of well-being have descended precipitately in a remarkably short period of time, as a result of deliberate policy choices made when many other options were available.”