LASPO is in desperate need of a re-evaluation, says Jon Robins
This month marks the three-year anniversary of the implementation of the most swingeing cuts to the legal aid scheme since it was introduced in 1949. In the aftermath of the second world war, the Attlee government set out its vision for a system of state-funded access to justice that was not restricted to those people “normally classed as poor” but should also include those of “small or moderate means”.
Such a modestly-stated aspiration of the Attlee government seems the heights of heady idealism compared to our reduced commitment to access to justice in a time of austerity.
“We can all agree that nobody should be denied access to justice,” wrote Lord McNally in a letter to The Guardian earlier this month (“We need a cross-party consensus on legal aid”, 4 April 2016). The former minister, who piloted the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO) through the Lords, was responding to a letter from lawyers and campaigners repeating calls for a promised review of the legislation. The peer went on to ask: “Can
