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Thanks for that Peter and I do appreciate the points you make. I was once a legal aid solicitor, in fact the first to obtain a franchise in the early 1990s from the Cheater office of the LAA, as I believe it then was. My remarks were in fact directed more at abuse than waste, although they apply to that too. The soldiers' torture in Iraq enquiry has cost millions and the allegations have now been found to be baseless, to the knowledge for some time of the solicitors bringing them if the judgment referred to above is to be believed. Just imagine how many certificates could have been issued and remunerated if that had not happened. Assuming a £10m claim is made relating to that enquiry and that the average legal aid bill is £10,000, 1,000 certificates could have been issued and paid for that piece of abuse. And do you remember the Green Form Scheme, opened in the 1970s and closed in the 1980s due to abuse, one solicitor getting clients to sign hundreds of blank forms? That was a great scheme, easy to work in office and quick to remunerate. Many of my clients benefited from that.

I am sure that 90+% of legal aid practitioners were like you and me, honest and hardworking for little reward. It is the few who spoil it for everyone else. It is up to those who know who is doing that to blow the whistle.

And I meant that legal aid was a luxury when introduced in, I believe, 1948. Firms and their clients then come to rely on it, hence the dependency. And finally certain of them find it a necessity. Hence Cocero's comment.