The head of the Crown Prosecution Service and bar chiefs have secured extra cash from HM Treasury to restore parity in fees between prosecution and defence barristers – prompting calls for the chancellor of the exchequer to do the same for solicitors.

Over the weekend director of public prosecutions Max Hill KC announced that he and bar chiefs had secured the necessary cash from HM Treasury ‘allowing us to press ahead with increases in prosecution fees to restore parity with defence fees’.

The disparity arose from the £54m deal that the Ministry of Justice, under Brandon Lewis MP, agreed with the criminal bar to end its long-running industrial action.

The Criminal Bar Association said the additional money for prosecutors was ‘hard fought for by the Criminal Bar Association alongside the CPS and the Bar Council and with support by key politicians’.

In her latest update, CBA chair Kirsty Brimelow KC said: 'Thanks go to Max Hill KC and his team and to Sir Bob Neill and the justice select committee, including the indefatigable Karl Turner MP and James Daly MP, as well as the Attorney General and the solicitor general. The lord chancellor also was supportive of the CBA’s argument to increase prosecution fees. Indeed, there was no counter-argument.'

Director of Public Prosecutions

Hill announced that he and bar chiefs had secured the necessary cash ‘allowing us to press ahead with increases in prosecution fees’

Source: James Veysey/Shutterstock

The 15% fee uplift for prosecutors is expected to come into force in eight weeks and will apply to cases in the Crown court backlog.

While solicitors have welcomed the news, they are now left wondering why they are having to take drastic action to get the government to invest the extra £30m needed to fill the gap between the government’s legal aid offer and the independent criminal legal aid review’s central recommendation.

Legal aid solicitors are actively looking to unionise while the Law Society has threatened to take lord chancellor Dominic Raab to court.

Stephen Davies, a solicitor at criminal defence firm Tuckers, tweeted: ‘Lord Bellamy KC conducted an independent review of criminal legal aid. His central recommendation was 15%. The [Ministry of Justice] ignored the report and failed to implement 15% for solicitors. AGFS received 15%+. Prosecutors rightly receive additional ££. Parity? The scales are still imbalanced.’

Society president Lubna Shuja said: ‘We note with interest that the government has agreed with Lord Bellamy that equality of arms between legal defence and prosecution is important, and consequently the government has increased payment rates for prosecution barristers in line with their defence counterparts.

‘There needs to be equality of arms with defence solicitors too. There is no reason why the Treasury cannot also provide a similar remedy for defence solicitors, as set out in Lord Bellamy’s independent report. This must be a priority to address the seriously damaging inequality that has led to more than 1,000 duty solicitors leaving the profession since 2017, many of them to the Crown Prosecution Service.

‘The government continues to short-change defence solicitors despite their crucial role as the backbone of the criminal justice system.’

In her latest update, Brimelow said the CBA 'always has supported its solicitor colleagues, ensuring that the increase funding on the backlog applied to LGFS as well as AGFS; even without the solicitors being in the room'.

 

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