23 April 2007

Law Society

http://www.lawsociety.org.uk

MPs put legal aid case to Government

Cross party MPs and supporters of the Law Society's What Price Justice? campaign have come together to fight for constituents who will be blocked from access to justice if the proposed legal aid reforms go ahead, in their current form.

Frontbench spokespeople and a range of the 147 MPs who have signed EDM 537, which presses the Government to rethink their proposals on legal aid, were at a recent debate in Westminster, organised by the Law Society.

Elfyn Llwyd MP, parliamentary leader of Plaid Cymru, chaired the event. He said: "Legal aid lawyers are standing on the edge of an abyss. Does the Government expect us to stand back and allow advice deserts to widen and vulnerable people to be left without representation?"

Andrew Holroyd, Deputy Vice President for the Law Society added: "The Government is living in cloud cuckoo land. How can their proposals serve access to justice? Eligibility to legal aid is meaningless if there are no lawyers to represent the most vulnerable in society."

Edward Lock, a family law solicitor based in Ealing, told MPs at the meeting that he was pulling out of legal aid because he cannot afford to continue if fixed fees are introduced along the lines the Government has dictated. "We will have orderly withdrawal over six months where we take on alternative work. The Government says that the legal aid budget has burgeoned in recent years. This is entirely due to expenses on disbursements including psychologists, for example, in childcare cases. I have seen a £42,000 case that included £17,000 of disbursements."

Carol Storer, from Shelter, said that legal aid practitioners are the 4th emergency service and without them many people would be in danger and extremely desperate.

Barbara Esam, a lawyer from the NSPCC, said that if the reforms go ahead in their current form "there will be a real and grave danger that legal aid lawyers will be a thing of the past. It is vital for the welfare of many vulnerable children that the important work that these lawyers do is recognised and saved, before it is too late."

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For more information journalists should contact the Law Society press office on 020 7320 5811

Melissa Davis
Interim Head of Press
Ext 4681

The Law Society
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