The latest twist this week on the roller-coaster that is the future of legal aid in asylum cases is vague in many ways, but important for two reasons.

It appears in what many consider to be the parish newsletter of New Labour (The Guardian), and the Department for Constitutional Affairs and the Home Office, while not completely standing up the report, are likewise not totally backing away from it.

On its face, the news is not all bad for asylum specialist lawyers.

While legal aid will probably be dropped for the initial application stage, it will probably be available for advice thereafter, without the previously mooted five-hour limit.

The rub is that the time-limit is likely to be replaced with an as yet unspecified financial limit.

What is the betting that the financial limit works out at a value equivalent to four-and-a-half hours' work?

Whitehall's wider agenda in relation to publicly-funded legal services gradually appears clearer.

Ministers want to de-lawyer much of the asylum process; and they want to streamline civil legal aid generally into larger firms offering bulk provision.

There are not only access to justice issues with the latter, but also serious concerns over how such a policy will affect ethnic diversity within that part of the legal profession that supplies legal aid services.

The current batch of ministers has a populist streak about it.

The trick for the profession and the Law Society is to convince the wider public that access to justice for all and diversity within the profession are issues important to everyone.