Summer Deadline Review of Legal Aid Unlikely

13/03/2018

The Lord Chancellor, David Gauke has announced that a long awaited review of the government’s controversial legal aid reforms is unlikely to be completed by the summer.

Amendments to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act (LASPO), which significantly cut access to legal aid, were introduced in April 2013. The Ministry of Justice is required to look it within three to five years of implementation, but Mr Gauke believes that the summer recess deadline is too ambitious, stating that he would rather get it right than stick to an unrealistic timeframe.

The news comes as critics of the reforms grow increasingly exasperated that the investigation in to the effectiveness of the reforms is looking set to stall.

Shadow justice secretary, Richard Burgon expressed his own frustration, fearing that the LASPO review “increasingly looks like it will fall far below expectations”. Adding to the chorus of disappointment over the potential delay Carol Storer, director of the Legal Aid Practitioners Group (APPG), claims the situation isn’t being helped by the fact that “…there are so many changes to the team. People who have read the literature, then move on. Expertise that has been developed has to be built up again”.

Many in the legal profession view legal aid as a vital component for access to justice and that the LASPO reforms have been detrimental to the process. Without having a solicitor who understands the complexities of the law, opponents of the reforms believe that people are being put in a situation where they’re having to represent themselves in court because they’re not entitled to legal aid and can’t afford to instruct a solicitor. Lawyers argue that, inevitably, it’s the taxpayer who picks up the bill because in some cases matters don’t get resolved or the court process gets slowed down.