Barristers will not gain at the expense of solicitors in the stand-off over very high cost criminal cases, the new legal aid minister assured practitioners this week.
In his first engagement as minister, Lord Bach said there is ‘no question’ of funding any increase in advocacy payments by cutting solicitors’ payments.
He also ruled out any increase in the legal aid budget. Spending on legal aid, he said, has increased from £536m in 1982 to around £2bn today – an average annual growth of 5.7% in real terms. The public purse could not be expected to meet that growth rate in future, he warned. ‘In the current extraordinary economic circumstances it is important that the taxpayer is assured that we are using their money wisely and effectively.’
The government’s programme of legal aid reform would continue, he said. While the future of best value tendering remains uncertain, the government is committed to Crown Court means testing.
The family graduated fees scheme remains under discussion, Lord Bach said. He revealed that this autumn’s consultation on the new civil contract would propose that lawyers offer a range of linked services to the public, which might mean they needed to form consortia or make joint bids.
Roy Morgan, chairman of the Legal Aid Practitioners Group, noted that the money raised by the government to bail out banks would fund legal aid for the next 250 years.
Commenting on the speech, Law Society President Paul Marsh said solicitors and barristers had a common interest in trying to persuade the government to put more money in to legal aid, but that resources should be distributed fairly.
‘We applaud Lord Bach's assurance that money will not be taken from hard-pressed solicitors to resolve the current problem of wealthy QCs declining to undertake very high cost criminal cases,’ he said.
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