FORUM: Government is taking a hatchet to whole areas of legal advice

Published: 25 November, 2010

AMID the swingeing cuts to public expenditure announced by the government, one area has not attracted quite the public concern or attention as the high profile cuts to defence expenditure or welfare.  

On November 15 the Ministry of Justice published a consultation on the reform of Legal Aid.

The Ministry of Justice, in common with most other departments, is required to cut approximately 25 per cent off its £9billion budget.  

The £2billion expenditure on Legal Aid will take its share of this cut.

The proposals in  the government’s consultation will see Legal Aid remuneration rates, frozen since the early 1990s, facing a 10 per cent cut across the board.  

Large areas of legal work will be removed altogether from the Legal Aid scheme, including: welfare benefits advice; education; debt; employment; consumer rights; immigration; clinical negligence and private family law proceedings. We must face up to the fact that these cuts are happening, whatever one’s views on the necessity and severity of the government’s approach.  

However, the approach of taking the hatchet to whole areas of legal advice seems ill thought out.

At a time of economic difficulty when many people are losing their jobs, welfare, employment and debt advice are being taken wholesale out of the scope of Legal Aid.  

Welfare benefits in particular is one of the most complicated areas of law and regulation – often accurately compared in complexity with the tax regime.  

But while the wealthy can pay large sums to their tax specialists, the poor will now longer be able to obtain advice from the low paid but dedicated lawyers who practise in this area.

Even if we never ourselves need to have recourse to these services directly or are simply financially ineligible for Legal Aid, it should not be forgotten that the fact that government, employers and the financially powerful are aware that even the poor can hold them to account and enforce their legal rights has a positive knock-on effect in everyone’s dealings with the powerful.

It is not particularly surprising that there has been no public outcry at the prospect of cutting such a large proportion of this public service given the popular image of the fat-cat Legal Aid lawyers of tabloid myth.  

The fact that the overwhelming majority of Legal Aid lawyers earn similar salaries to teachers and nurses is conveniently ignored.  

Legal Aid was established in 1949 as one of the four key pillars of the welfare state alongside welfare benefits, the NHS and education.  

The latter two are enjoyed by all during the course of their lives. Welfare benefits and Legal Aid are there as a safety net.  

It is worth remembering that none of us know the course our lives will take and when we might need to fall back on that safety net.

• Jamie Beagent is with Leigh Day & Co Solicitors