For over 60 years legal aid has performed a critical role in providing support to those most at risk of being excluded from our legal system. Grasping the consequences of a legal system all but closed to those who could not afford to it protection, Clement Attlee’s post-war government introduced the Legal Aid and Legal Advice Act 1949, which created the legal aid system we have today.
Far from reforming the legal aid system to make it fit the 21st century environment in which it operates, the Tory-led government’s plans (to be debated in the House of Commons today) will instead decimate it almost entirely.
The cuts they are proposing will fall disproportionately on social welfare law – the kind of early stage legal advice and support provided by law centres, the Citizen Advice Bureau (CAB) and others on benefit issues, debt advice, employment law, education law and housing issues.
This early intervention, while a financial outlay for the taxpayer, ultimately results in savings further down the line. Preventing sometimes small legal problems escalating into much greater issues of the kind that would necessitate a greater call on the resources of central and local government spares the public purse in the long run.
In fact, according to research by the CAB, every £1 spent on legal aid on housing issues saves the state £2.34, on debt the saving is £2.98, employment advice the state saves £7.13, and benefits the saving reaches £8.80. The cuts are nothing but short-sighted and short-termist.
As a result of these cuts, we also face the real prospect of losing our precious network of law centres and CABs who are facing a triple whammy: budgets cuts from local authorities, cuts in legal aid and at a time when there is a huge rise in demand for these services.
I recognise that cuts need to be made. When Labour was in government, we managed to stem the inexorable rise in the total legal aid budget but simultaneously strived to protect social welfare law because of its importance to the most vulnerable in society.
I would have carried through a new scheme for contracting of solicitors for criminal legal aid and lowered criminal defence advocate fees in the Crown Court. This delivered 10 per cent efficiency savings – enough to have continued funding social welfare law. This more efficient contracting of legal services from solicitors has bizarrely not been implemented by the coalition government, who are instead cutting social welfare law.
Decimating social welfare legal aid is an assault on our post-war welfare state and dismantles the notion of equality for all before the law. Moreover, government claims of remaining committed to protecting society’s most vulnerable have been shown to be hollow – the Ministry of Justice’s own impact assessment demonstrated that women, ethnic communities and those with disabilities will be hit the hardest, to devastating effect.
Legal aid has been used to provide women in abusive relationships the legal means to protect themselves from violent and psychological abuse, enabled women to seek legal advice and support on housing, debt and child maintenance and allowed some of the most vulnerable women facing forced marriages access to vital, specialist legal help.
The government initially planned to remove private family legal aid unless there is an injunction brought or active criminal proceedings in respect of domestic violence – setting the threshold to receiving legal aid extremely high. This simply does not provide for situations, as happens far too frequently, where a woman has been living in fear for many years but has not taken formal action until gathering the courage to leave their partner.
Labour has tabled an amendment to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill to stop this unfair restriction from trapping women in abusive relationships.
Social welfare legal aid has been a lifeline for women, in some cases quite literally. Women make over 60 per cent of all applications for legal support in civil and families matters. But the government are severing this lifeline for some of the people most in need of help.
The policies that will be voted on in the House of Commons today, if fully implemented, are in danger of creating advice deserts throughout the country, and run the risk of destroying a system that has for over 60 years sought to protect the legal rights of every citizen of this country, regardless of financial circumstances.
Despite their tenacious and determined campaigning, groups as diverse as the Law Society, the Women’s Institute, Gingerbread, Shelter, Age UK and the RNIB have had their concerns simply brushed aside. I agree with these groups that our legal aid system is too precious to simply discard, and we must all fight hard for its retention and proper, fair and just reform.
Sadiq Khan is the shadow Lord Chancellor and shadow justice secretary
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