Planned cuts to legal aid a ‘potential disaster for poor’ warns MP Jeremy Corbyn

Published: 24th December, 2010
by TOM FOOT

JEREMY Corbyn has warned the House of Commons that fears over massive cuts to legal aid have already started to cripple Islington law firms and leave the poor open to injustice.

The Labour MP for Islington North, speaking at an adjournment debate in Westminster Hall on Tuesday, criticised the Government’s green paper as a “potential disaster.”

The proposals include reducing the type of cases eligible for legal aid, lowering income levels below which people qualify and reducing payments to legal representatives.

Mr Corbyn told the Commons: “I tried to get a solicitor for a young woman with a very deserving asylum case but all of the available practices were completely full. While not every problem needs solving via legal advice, many of them do, and these deserving people are often in desperate situations and in a civilised society such as ours there is no good reason why they should be without it. Indeed it is one of the hallmarks of a civilised society.”

Mr Corbyn’s speech follows the closure of immigration firm Sheik and Co solicitors, based in Finsbury Park, in September 

The firm, set up in Seven Sisters Road in 1997, was regarded as one of the best Immigration practices in London. 

Mr Corbyn praised the Islington Law Centre but warned the crucial service would become inundated from extra case loads. 

He said: “I would ask the Minister to recognise the value of law centres [and recognise] that without them many of our most vulnerable constituents go without access to justice whatsoever.”