Legal profession opposes further legal aid cuts

The government is in consultations to cut a further £220 million from criminal legal aid despite widespread opposition across the legal profession.

Justice Secretary Chris Grayling, who has no prior legal expertise and is the first non-lawyer to hold the post for centuries, is pushing forward proposals to curb prisoners' and immigrants' rights to legal representation and withhold aid from defendants earning more than £37,500 a year. Another objective of the consultation is to introduce free market economics into criminal law by making lawyers and firms compete for legal aid contracts, which chair of the Bar Council, Maura McGowan QC, has warned would provide "none of the safeguards and qualities which we must expect from our justice system; decisions on allocation of work must be made on quality and not on money alone".

Meanwhile, president of the Law Society, Lucy Scott-Moncrieff, has criticised the government's haste to implement the measures and voiced concerns over their implications for UK justice. She told the BBC's Today programme: "It will take much longer to do properly, and if it's not done properly then we are going to end up with miscarriages of justice, with people being stuck in prison far longer than they should be on remand, with witnesses not turning up, with cases not being properly prepared - it's a huge, huge risk."

Nick Hanning, president of the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives, also expressed his concern: "The proposals announced today appear designed to be divisive within society. We expect the Ministry of Justice to focus on improving access to justice for all, not on identifying groups of people who can be ostracised from justice. We are particularly concerned over removing civil legal aid to recent immigrants, removing support to judicial review applicants challenging public bodies, and to continuing to punish people after they have served their time by making them pay for the court costs from future earnings, in effect inhibiting their ability to rebuild their lives and contribute to society."

A spokeswoman for the government said: "At a time when businesses across the country have to adapt to a very difficult climate, the legal sector cannot be immune."