Justice minister Sarah Sackman has admitted that the kitty for increased legal aid spending is now effectively empty. Speaking at a fringe event of the Labour Party conference in Liverpool, Sackman said she was fully committed to the principle of legal aid but that there is little room for further investment.
The minister said the government had ‘really sought to put our money where our mouth is’ by committing almost £100m more to criminal legal aid, an extra £23m for housing advice and £34m for the criminal bar. This had come alongside a £200m investment in IT systems.
Sackman continued: ‘I would be lying if I said there is a whole lot more money to spend. I have got to be honest. You heard the [chancellor of the exchequer] John Healey speech earlier and we are not awash with money – the fiscal situation is tight. The question for you and those of us who care about legal aid is what it would take to reverse LASPO and make 80% eligibility rather than 20% we have now.
‘Part of the essay question is how do we make the money we have got work harder? I wish I had an extra billion pounds but even then it probably would not touch the sides of the issues we have.’
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Sackman said she wanted to develop a national justice system based on the NHS principle that early treatment of problems saves on high spending further down the line.
She added: ‘Law centres are a fraction of what we spend on legal aid. I am not quite sure why legal support and legal aid is not part of a national legal service. Do we need to think about how we intervene earlier? Can we think about how we get people advice earlier in the hope that some of those problems can be resolved at an early stage?’
The minister endorsed the Interest on Lawyers’ Client Accounts scheme, which will divert money to justice spending, saying it was ‘creating a revenue stream precisely to invest in access to justice’. The government has yet to formally respond to a consultation on the scheme, which has been opposed by the legal profession, but has advertised for two senior staff to run it.
Sackman was pressed on whether the government should start to levy the biggest firms who benefit from the status of the England and Wales justice system to pay more towards it. The minister replied: ‘We can ask and might want to consider asking some of the more lucrative ends of the profession but that is politically challenging.’
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