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Legal Aid

The fee is a national fee. It is the same wherever the work is done. I am sure that I have already said that there are suppliers in London doing the work more cheaply than suppliers in the regions, and that this is a matter of efficiencies, not regions. We consider that the fixed fees are set at a level that will facilitate good service supply in London as well. Good as our legal aid system is, there has not yet been a Government who have secured an effective legal aid system that provides all the advice and assistance necessary for all the needy people who require it. The reforms give us the best chance of achieving that. I repeat that they are not cost-cutting reforms. They are about getting value for money. Since without the discipline of fixed fees the legal aid budget will continue to grow exponentially, I must make it clear that the alternative to spending taxpayers’ money more effectively in this way would be cuts in eligibility for the civil scheme and cuts in its scope. I do not want to be involved in such a process, which would be to the detriment of the needy people on whose behalf almost everyone who has so far intervened in the debate has been speaking. The Government, too, intend to serve those needy people, as do practitioners. Rather than damaging their interests, the changes will improve the availability of legal provision to them.