Jon Robins takes little solace from the government’s recent U-turn on legal aid reform
Chris Grayling’s legal aid sort of U-turn last week is, of course, to be welcomed. I say “sort of” because, although the ill-thought and probably unworkable price competitive tendering scheme has been binned, in its place an across-the-board 17.5% fee cut will be imposed upon a beleaguered defence profession as well as a restatement of the commitment to save £220m from the legal aid budget.
Although, the Law Society brokered the deal with the government following a “constructive engagement” that the justice secretary never tires of praising (no doubt much to Chancery Lane’s discomfort), it recognises that firms will go to the wall as a result of the cut. The solicitors’ representative body might have accepted the case for “managed market consolidation”, but its members haven’t.
There isn’t much to celebrate about last week’s “climbdown”, aside from an opportunity to rethink the judicial review proposals. But the ambitious justice secretary was quick to reassure voters he hadn’t gone soft
