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Legal Aid

The Minister says no, but if she were to examine the salaries of GPs in London, Norfolk or anywhere else, she would see that they have increased considerably—by much more than those of people doing legal aid work. We will lose some firms and we will have some of the fees paid. I understand the holding position that the Minister has taken by saying, ““I am taking some of Carter but not all of it.”” I want to cite only one example in relation to criminal legal aid, which is a letter written to the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North (Ms Johnson) by Ian Phillip of Myer Wolff solicitors. It has been circulated and colleagues have seen it. It states:"““One of my colleagues represented a youth arrested on suspicion of a murder in a very complex case. My colleague gave 13 hours of advice and assistance to the youth who was understandably very upset/nervous and vulnerable. He also spent a total of 4 hours in travelling to 2 police stations for interviews and identification procedures and waiting for interrogations to continue. All attendances were in unsocial hours. If the Carter proposals are brought in, the firm would now receive £144 plus VAT. At the moment most firms pay their staff half of the police station bill if carried out in unsocial hours, i.e after 5pm or at ""weekends. The end result would therefore be that my colleague would receive £72 for 17 hours work advising a vulnerable suspect on the most serious allegation usually considered by a Criminal Court. This of course works out at less than the minimum wage brought in by the government.””" Such a situation cannot be acceptable. The Minister will tell me if those figures are wrong, but they were given in December—not before—by a solicitor in Hull who was describing a recent experience.