The government’s plans for legal aid were dealt a serious blow this week after they were savaged by an influential parliamentary committee.
The Commons Constitutional Affairs Committee says it fears that if the proposed reforms to the legal aid system go ahead there is a serious risk for access to justice among the most vulnerable in society.
The move to competitive tendering among firms for legal aid contracts must be properly piloted before it is implemented, the committee says. It also calls on government to scrap the “transitional period” of fixed fees, claiming it could lead to significant cuts in income for many legal aid lawyers and prove to be unsustainable.
The committee attacked the government for penny-pinching in some ways yet failing to focus on areas where cost is actually increasing, namely crown court defence work and public law children cases.
Committee chair, Alan Beith MP, says: “The risks inherent in these largely untested and unpiloted reform plans might be justified were the whole system in utter crisis but large parts of the legal aid system are stable in cost terms.”
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