02 June 2023
Could Starmer, Davey or Sunak (or whoever becomes the next prime minister) rescue the legal aid system? In this week’s NLJ, columnist Roger Smith looks back to the Cameron-Osborne years of austerity, before examining potential routes back to functionality.
The government could, for example, found a national legal service encompassing Citizens Advice and other advice centres. It may even be possible to include funding sources so that it partly pays for itself.
Whatever happens, it is not controversial to say that the current legal aid system needs help.
Smith, a former director of JUSTICE, writes: ‘In 2010, you could credibly argue that England and Wales had the best civil legal aid scheme in the world. Now, you would be laughed at for asserting anything like that.’
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