Sorry for wanting to get paid

David Lock, Parliamentary Secretary at the Lord Chancellor's Department, says people are more deterred from going to court by lawyers' fees than by rising court fees (see [2000] Gazette, 18 May, 4).I will not comment on the wickedness of those solicitors who are so rapacious as to wish to make a decent living out of doing their jobs.

I merely remark on the nerve of an official whose department is ensuring that less and less legal work is publicly funded and who then sneers at us for trying to get paid by somebody other than the now inaccessible public purse.

Robin Bailey, Tyndallwoods, Birmingham