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Legal Aid

As I said, at present there is no intention to limit the contract threshold in any way. However, the hon. Gentleman has put his finger on an argument. The Legal Services Commission also has to cut costs, and it will do so if it deals with fewer people, because it will have fewer transactions to manage. That is a case to consider. As I outlined to my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, Central—a senior Member—almost everyone who responded acknowledged the need to change the legal aid system. I imagine that most Members here acknowledge that as well. We have the best-funded legal aid system in the world by a mile, but it does not optimise its resources to serve the public and to reward practitioners properly. Our legal aid system is the best-funded in the world by a long way. A table kindly sent to me by a senior judge shows that the legal aid of the majority of countries whose justice systems we consider to be good costs between €1 and €5 per person. For example, legal aid costs €5 per person in France and Germany. Countries whose civil liberties we admire, such as Scandinavian countries, spend between €10 and €30 per head. The UK, and only the UK, pays €60 per head, or £100 per taxpayer, on legal aid. I am glad that our system is well resourced, because that makes it the best. However, although we taxpayers pay £100 each, in the past two decades, under Labour and Conservative Governments, the costs have gone up far faster than inflation and those of any other public service. Since 1997, the fund has increased from £1.5 billion to more than £2 billion. Despite that, costs are rising exponentially and the budget is overspent. There is no prospect of more cash, although there is a campaign to get more into the legal aid budget. I would be very pleased to have more cash for my budget; I would not argue with that at all. The Department for Constitutional Affairs is not the right target for any such campaign. However, realistically, as we well know, there will be no more cash. I am waiting to see whether Opposition parties will pledge more cash; they have not done that so far, and I suggest that they will not. Furthermore, they should not do so if, as I shall set out, we are not getting best value from our current cash.