The Bar Council is urging all barristers to write to their MPs in a bid to stop the Ministry of Justice cutting legal aid and introducing tendering, which it calls ‘discriminatory’ and says will ‘irreversibly undermine access to justice’.
Barristers are being asked to draw to their MP’s attention the dangers of further legal aid cuts and the introduction of price-competitive tendering (PCT) for criminal cases
In a paper published earlier this week, the Bar Council warns that removing a suspect’s ability to choose their lawyer will create a two-tier system – one for people who can afford high-quality representation and one for those who cannot.
With the introduction of PCT, firms will have to bid for criminal legal aid contracts and one of the leading contenders is a subsidiary of haulage firm Eddie Stobart, which has created a business model with the taxpayer in mind. This has so incensed some lawyers that the firms says it has received messages from them saying “truck off!’
The Bar Council is insistent that reducing the number of suppliers of legal aid from 1,600 to 400 will create an ‘advice desert’, particularly in rural areas and make it much harder for people to get the right opinions.
According to the legal body, further cuts to civil legal aid, the introduction of a residence test and limiting judicial review will weaken the fundamental principle of equality before the law and will most severely affect the most vulnerable in society, particularly in housing and immigration cases.
Lawyers are also planning protests outside Parliament in opposition to the MoJ’s proposals and the Bar Council has also started a petition against the changes with campaigning group 38 degrees, while another petition started by a solicitor in Exeter is on the Number 10 website and may lead to a debate in the Commons if it receives 10,000 signatures.