The crisis facing the criminal legal aid sector is not as bad as the Law Society maintains, a justice minister has suggested – telling MPs that new government contracts have brought stability and sustainability back into the system.
Giving evidence to the House of Commons justice select committee yesterday, Mike Freer MP said early indications suggest the number of providers, offices and duty solicitors are up since new crime contracts came into force last October.
The committee heard that the number of criminal legal aid providers is up to 1,130, compared with 1,051 in April. There were 1,716 offices operating last December, up from 1,570 in April. There are currently 4,023 duty solicitors, up from 3,113 in October.
Freer said the figures suggest ‘stability and sustainability have been brought back into the system’.
He added: ‘The early indications are the new contracts, post CLAR, is more providers, more firms, more duty solicitors. Whether that continues an upward growth or stays static, we’ll have to wait and see. But I don’t share the dystopian view that it is just on a downward spiral. The early indications are we have brought some stability sustainability into it.’
‘So you know better than the Law Society?’ Labour’s Maria Eagle said.
Freer replied: ‘I didn’t say I knew better than the Law Society. My interpretation of the statistics in front of me is that it is not unreasonable to draw a conclusion that an increase in firms, providers and duty solicitors would suggest sustainability has been re-established.’
Earlier, Law Society president Lubna Shuja told the committee that 12 years ago, there were 1,861 criminal legal aid firms. Now, there are 1,038. There were 5,131 criminal legal aid practitioners in 2018. Now, there are 4,063. The Society predicts that the number of duty solicitors will fall by another 19% by 2025 and the number of firms doing criminal legal aid work will fall by 16%.
The crisis is so bad that in Wales, a court hearing had to be adjourned because a solicitor involved in the case was the only duty solicitor in the area and was called out to the police station, Shuja said.
Shuja told the Gazette: ‘There is often a spike in the figures after a new criminal legal aid contract is awarded but the long-term picture remains one of decline.
‘The comparison between October and January figures should be ignored because there were a number of firms and solicitors whose paperwork was not sorted out in time for them to be included on the October rotas, so the October figure was artificially low.
‘Our analysis indicates the number of duty solicitors will decrease by another 19% by 2025, meaning there will be 687 fewer duty solicitors. The number of firms doing criminal legal aid work will also decrease by 16% (150 fewer firms) by 2025. This exodus can’t be painted in a positive light. Victims, defendants and the wider public will suffer if the government doesn’t take urgent action to halt the extinction of the criminal defence profession. Without the expertise of these dedicated professionals the country will not have a justice system worthy of the name.’
