Criminal defence solicitors have been left in the dark on rate rises while a shortage of family legal aid practitioners is forcing survivors of domestic abuse to represent themselves in court
Criminal defence firms are currently bidding for ten-year contracts due to start in October 2025, and have until 22 October to submit their applications to the Legal Aid Agency if they want to join a duty rota on the start date.
However, ministers have not yet published their response to the ‘Crime lower consultation’, which proposed reforms to the fee system for police station and youth court work. The consultation closed in March.
Neither has the Lord Chancellor outlined her response to the Law Society’s successful judicial review, R (on behalf of the Law Society) v Lord Chancellor [2024] EWHC 155 (Admin). The High Court held in January that former Lord Chancellor Dominic Raab acted irrationally and failed to make adequate enquiries when implementing Sir Christopher Bellamy’s Criminal Legal Aid Independent Review, which reported in 2021. Sir Christopher recommended an increase in defence solicitors’ legal aid rates of at least 15%.
Law Society president Nick Emmerson said: ‘Both decisions are well overdue. How can firms make a sound business decision to bid for a new contract, especially one lasting ten years, without knowing whether these bare minimum criminal legal aid rate increases will ever happen?’
Emmerson also highlighted the impact on access to justice of solicitors leaving family and criminal legal aid due to the low fees, warning that 19% of legal aid firms have closed in the past five years.
The latest Family Court Statistics Quarterly, published last week, showed 1,555 survivors (29% of the total) made domestic abuse applications without legal representation between April and June. This is nearly double the number in 2011, when 15% were unrepresented.
