Falconer in media blitz over empty legal aid coffers

These are busy times for the Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, who last week went on a PR offensive to stress that no extra money would be pumped into the legal aid system – despite recent warnings that the criminal bar was in the mood to strike over pay.



‘Rich QCs should be made to share’ was the divide-and-conquer line given to The Times (21 July), with Lord Falconer telling the newspaper that redistribution among barristers was the answer to the current crisis over pay at the junior end of the criminal bar.



‘He also urged barristers not to disrupt the courts by refusing legal aid work as many have threatened to do,’ The Times said. ‘Lord Falconer said that he would resist any such action and keep the criminal justice system going. He declined to say what steps he would take but one measure could be to draft in other lawyers, perhaps from the Crown Prosecution Service, to ensure defendants were not unrepresented.’



Meanwhile, The Daily Telegraph billed its interview with the Lord Chancellor as ‘Falconer takes the fight to his critics’. ‘Lord Falconer’s message to his former colleagues is stark and simple: however angry barristers may be about criminal legal aid rates, however many of them go on strike this autumn, there will be no more money before 2006,’ legal editor Joshua Rozenberg wrote (21 July).



Lord Falconer admitted that the situation where a barrister whose case does not go ahead as planned may be paid as little as £46 per day before expenses ‘needs to be changed’ but argued that it is wrong to isolate a single statistic.



But Mr Rozenberg warned that the Lord Chancellor faces ‘an even greater threat’. ‘If barristers walk out, the Lord Chancellor can cope; but judges throwing in the towel is something else,’ he wrote. ‘And resign they certainly will, from the beginning of the next tax year, unless he does something about their pensions.’



The potential stand-off stems from proposed tax concessions in the Judicial Pensions Bill that would restore judges’ financial status, a move The Telegraph suggested will be difficult to sell to both the public and the Treasury.



Lord Falconer told the paper he remains ‘committed’ to solving this problem. ‘I would love to know how he is going to do it,’ Mr Rozenberg wrote. ‘Perhaps he would too.’



The Observer, meanwhile, crowed last weekend (24 July) about putting one over the Lord Chancellor.



‘Lord Falconer… has been forced to reveal details of his ministerial diary in an important victory for the Freedom of Information Act,’ it said. ‘[This] is likely to speed up moves to create a public register right across Whitehall that lists individuals and groups who meet ministers.



‘Campaigners for more transparency in government have argued that it is important for the public to know who ministers meet and when.’



However, the paper was still unimpressed. ‘Critics will argue that Falconer has stopped short of full disclosure and not stuck to the spirit of the Act. He has refused to give details of meetings between himself and “key stakeholders and policy experts”,’ it said.



But Lord Falconer defended his actions – arguing that it was in the public interest to hold free and frank discussions with stakeholders on key issues and that the latter might be unwilling to enter into discussions if they were later to be made public.



As a result, The Observer said the list of individuals he has met is largely made up of a collection of figures from the legal establishment.



The paper added it would be challenging his decision through the Information Commissioner.