Legal Aid Cuts – the knock on effect

On the 4th December 2014, during a session before the House of Commons public accounts committee (PAC), a senior civil servant at the Ministry of Justice admitted the speed at which they brought in the Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act did not allow for evidence to be gathered to investigate the impact of legal aid cuts. The civil servant added ‘The piece of evidence that was overwhelming was the level of spending. The evidence required was that government said we wish to cut the legal aid bill.’

Evidence of the impact is now aplenty. Sadiq Khan, shadow justice secretary, said: ‘There are now parts of the country where people are struggling to access valuable legal advice. And the 30% rise in litigants in person and the drastic fall in mediation assessments mean that many of the government’s predicted savings have simply shifted to other departments.’

In a report commissioned by the Legal Action Group a total of 88 per cent of GPs questioned agreed that patients not being able to obtain legal or specialist advice about their problems would have a negative impact on their health.

Two thirds of GPs reported that the number of patients who had issues with benefits would have benefited from legal advice had certainly increased. This was followed closely by debts or financial problems and issues at work as GPs reported a 65 per cent increase.

Just over half of the doctors polled reported a rise in the number of patients with housing problems. A similar proportion reported the same in relation to community care. President of the Law Society, Andrew Caplen, added: "This is independent research that the government should not ignore. GPs are giving a clear warning that lack of legal advice can have consequences for a person's health. The government should look at putting back support for legal and specialist advice services for social welfare law problems."

Whichever party succeeds to Parliament next May, it seems unlikely much, if at all, will be done to remedy the inevitable and foreseeable social and health issues which have arisen as a result of the cuts. It remains to be seen whether the cuts to legal aid have made any real difference to the deficit as the view seems to be they have simply added to costs elsewhere in the economy. 

By Sara Westwood of Morgan Jones & Pett. sarawestwood@m-j-p.co.uk