In seeking to justify the need for means testing, Derek Hill states that the previous legal aid system was financially unsustainable (see [2006] Gazette, 9 November, 12).

My understanding is that the annual criminal legal aid budget is around £2 billion, which equates to less than £1 per person, per week. The claimed saving by the introduction of means testing is, I understand, £35 million per annum, which equates to around 80p per year, per person.


The government's claim, repeated by Mr Hill, that it is necessary in principle cannot hold water given that it was this government which removed means testing in the first place. There will be many people who will not be financially eligible for legal aid but who will not in reality be able to find the necessary funds to be represented, especially if they elect trial by jury. Is this a cynical ploy by the government to reduce the numbers who can do that?


No amount of tinkering can reduce the injustices and delays that means testing is causing. The government has scrapped means testing before. It should do so again.


AS Pinchbeck, Heptonstalls, Goole, Yorkshire