Steve Hynes welcomes the Labour party’s commitment to widening access to justice & hopes the government will track back from LASPO
At a fringe meeting on access to justice at the Labour party conference in Liverpool last week Labour’s shadow Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary Richard Burgon, was making bold statements about restoring civil legal aid and increasing the number of Law Centres. He told the meeting held on 24 September: ‘After ten years of austerity access to justice is more important than ever.’ Perhaps not surprisingly his comments went down well with a large audience of lawyers and activists.
Lord Willy Bach also spoke at the event. He told the meeting that just before he left office as legal aid minister in April 2010 the number of cases supported by legal aid peaked before beginning to fall away under the coalition government. They fell off a cliff he said with the introduction of LASPO (The Legal Aid and Sentencing of Offenders Act 2012). According to Bach: ‘Of all the objectional legislation passed under the coalition government LASPO was the worst of all.’ LASPO,
