By Catherine Baksi


The government came under renewed pressure this week to scrap parts of its legal aid reforms after publication of a damning report by a cross-party committee of MPs.



The constitutional affairs select committee (CASC) said the government's plan to impose fixed fees followed rapidly by competitive tendering was a 'breathtaking risk'.



It recommended the move to competitive tendering be properly piloted in a limited geographical area before being implemented, and said not to do so would be 'reckless.' It called on the government to halt plans to introduce fixed fees during the short transitional period, warning they were over-complex, rigid, and likely to impose unsustainable cuts in solicitors' income.



The MPs warned that, if the reforms went ahead, there would be a serious risk to access to justice among the most vulnerable in society.



While it supported the government's aim to stem the increase in the legal aid budget, the committee questioned its method of wholesale reform without focusing on the two areas where cost was actually increasing - Crown Court defence work and public law children cases.



Committee chairman Alan Beith, a Liberal Democrat, said: 'The risks inherent in these largely untested and unpiloted reform plans might be justified were the whole system in utter crisis but large parts of the system are stable in cost terms.'



A report by economists LECG for the Law Society published this week also said the reform timetable risked too great a disruption to firms. The LECG study suggested a more sensitive time-scale for implementation and a moratorium on some of the proposals.



Law Society Vice-President Andrew Holroyd said: 'It just demonstrates how proceeding across the board with such widescale reform could lead to a disastrous breakdown of the criminal justice system. The government has got to pull back.'



Legal aid minister Vera Baird said the government would consider the MPs' report and respond formally in due course.



Legal Services Commission chief executive Carolyn Regan said: 'We are continuing to work towards implementation of various elements of the reform programme in October as planned.'



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