What’s that hollow metallic sound? Blow me. It’s an old tin can being kicked down the asphalt outside the Ministry of Justice (MoJ). The good news: the MoJ is going to review the sustainability of civil legal aid. The bad: the review won’t be published until 2024. So Dominic Raab has executed the most hackneyed Yes Minister tactic. He has announced a review that will shut down serious discussion of a major political issue until after the next election. And it is pretty likely, for one reason or another, that he will not still be in office to deal with its re-emergence.
The announcement of the review not only stalls immediate action; it has the added advantage of putting interested parties in a difficult place. Do they sneer or cheer? The Law Society reported that it had ‘called for a review of civil legal aid sustainability for a long time, so we are
