Criminal defence solicitors ‘will not hesitate to take appropriate action’ without an improved pay deal, the London Criminal Courts Solicitors' Association (LCCSA) has warned after the government announced a revised offer to end the bar strike.

Lord chancellor Brandon Lewis said yesterday that he was offering a package of reforms that represent a further £54m investment in the criminal bar and solicitors.

The Criminal Bar Association will now ballot its members on the new deal – though it said the ‘premature’ press release published by the Ministry of Justice was ‘not a good start’.

The MoJ said the proposed 15% fee increase for criminal barristers will now apply to the vast majority of cases currently in the Crown Court and will also apply to fee increases for solicitors.

LCCSA outside the Old Bailey during bar strikes

LCCSA president Puri (centre): Offer to CBA shows MoJ has ‘flexibility to re-negotiate’

Source: Jonathan Goldberg

But the Law Society accused the government of being ‘short-sighted’ for not providing equal pay to solicitors, saying it is proposing ‘only a 9% rate increase for solicitors, 40% less than the 15% being offered to barristers, and far less than the bare minimum the Bellamy report concluded was needed for criminal defence solicitors’ firms to remain economically viable’.

LCCSA president Hesham Puri said the government’s offer to criminal barristers shows that the MoJ ‘has the flexibility to re-negotiate’, adding: ‘It is essential [that] parity, at the least, is applied to litigator fees. If this does not happen, we will not hesitate to take appropriate action.’

In a message to LCCSA members, he said: ‘We assure you that as you work hard within a broken justice system, we at the LCCSA are urgently seeking a new deal for solicitor fees, which must also be backdated.

‘It is not acceptable that defendants are waiting in prison for trials beyond custody limits. Nor is it acceptable that victims are being let down. If a sustainable pay deal is not on the table promptly even more of our colleagues will leave.’

The MoJ told the Gazette yesterday that £19m of the additional £54m is earmarked for solicitors and highlighted the last line of its press release, which states that ‘further uplifts for solicitors will be announced in the weeks ahead’.

 

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