On the eve of the chancellor’s budget speech, the Law Society has called on the government to take the steps needed to enhance growth in legal services. Society president Nick Emmerson said: 'The spring budget is an opportunity for the government to increase growth in legal services. By allowing legal partnerships to access full expensing, boosting legal apprenticeships and changing the National Skills Fund so employees can access legal retraining, the government can unleash the legal sector.’

Legal services are an economic powerhouse, worth £60bn annually to the economy, Emmerson said. 'A strong legal services sector underpins a strong economy across the board. Law firms can be found in every region, city and town across England and Wales. Growing legal hubs can be found from Bristol to Newcastle, spreading the benefits of the sector throughout the UK.

'We hope the budget will be used to invest in legal services, so the existing economic strengths of our profession can be unleashed, at minimal cost to the government.'

Nick Emmerson

Emmerson: 'We hope the budget will be used to invest in legal services'

Source: Darren Filkins

Meanwhile the chair of the bar warned that the ongoing failure to invest properly in justice will lead to much larger spending costs in other departments, as well as a failure to tackle the delays endemic to the justice system.

Public funding for justice in England and Wales has declined by 22% in real terms between 2009/10 and 2022/23. Unlike some frontline public services, justice spending is not protected, Sam Townend KC said. 

'The justice system is a fundamental public service, but it has been starved of necessary funding for years. This is a false economy – every penny stripped from the justice sector increases costs elsewhere, through court delays and impacts on other services, such as housing, benefits, and schools. 

'Justice should be seen as an area where the government can spend to save. We need urgent investment to repair our crumbling court buildings and facilities, funding for early legal advice to reduce the strain on the courts, and an injection of money into legal aid fees to stem the exodus of legal professionals from publicly funded work.'

In a pre-budget analysis last week, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) concluded that any cut in taxes would result in unprotected areas, such as justice and local government, facing a bigger squeeze.