A contingency legal aid fund and private sector investment are among proposals being considered by the Conservatives to overhaul a legal aid system ‘in crisis’, shadow justice secretary Dominic Grieve QC told the Gazette in an interview published today on our website.

‘I’m convinced the current system isn’t working and I have serious doubts that anything can be done to make it work without pouring a great deal more money into it,’ he said.

However, as a Conservative Treasury would not increase the £2bn overall budget, he said ­policymakers are looking at ­alternative sources of money, including a privately financed contingency legal aid fund. Grieve added that he would also like to see the criminal and civil budgets split to relieve pressure at the civil end.

He said he did not recognise the picture painted by justice secretary Jack Straw of legal aid lawyers profiting unduly from the public purse.

‘The impression I get, from those doing legal aid work, particularly family work, is that most of them are poor as church mice,’ he said. Current legal aid rates are ‘plainly not commercial’ and the ‘profit margins are minute.’

He contrasted legal aid rates with those that government departments are prepared to pay private practice solicitors for external advice.

On the future legal services market, Grieve said he had anxieties about legal disciplinary practices and alternative business structures. ‘The legal profession is unlike most other commercial enterprises and the priority will be to ensure that professional standards are maintained in order to uphold the justice system,’ he said.

‘That means getting the regulation right and may mean overriding commercial interests.’

Getting a British Bill of Rights and Responsibilities onto the statute book, to replace the Human Rights Act, is one of Grieve’s priorities. He said the bill would have to be compatible with ‘continued adherence to the European Convention on Human Rights’. The legislation would also enshrine historic freedoms and liberties, such as the right to trial by jury, he said.