This morning the new parliamentary term for the legal aid and advice lobby kicked off with a meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Legal Aid. Parliamentarians at the meeting reflected on the problems caused by the legal aid cuts and Labour’s Andy Slaughter, the Shadow Minister for Legal Aid, acknowledged that this would have to be addressed if his party were to win the general election next year.     Karl Turner MP, the chair of the group, and Kate Green MP talked about the cuts in legal advice services in their respective surgeries. Green said her local Law Centre, Trafford, had closed and this meant she had no-where to refer people with employment problems. Her local welfare rights service had also been cut, “We have to tell people, unless you can afford legal advice there is nothing we can do for you. This is an absolute disgrace.”     According to Jenny Beck, the co-chair of the Legal Aid Practitioners Group (LAPG), in domestic violence cases, “only a tiny, tiny proportion of those who were supposed to get legal aid are getting it.”  She told the meeting that it is only the “ very persistent” who are able to gather the necessary evidence to show that they have suffered domestic violence under the rules introduced by the government. Ruth Hayes, Director of Islington Law Centre, also spoke at the meeting about the very fragmented service her centre was now forced to provide after the loss of legal aid income, as well as the changing advice needs of people, many who are reliant on food banks and other charities due to changes in benefits law.     In his speech Andy Slaughter, spoke about the “overall decline in the criminal and civil justice system,” and said that Labour, if elected to government next year, would have to “put in place a system of access to justice over the lifetime of the parliament.” He accused the government of being “intellectually bankrupt” and argued that if Clarke and his successor Grayling as Secretary of State for Justice “had set out deliberately to undermine the rule of law they could not have done a better job.” He warned the meeting that an incoming Labour government would have “to prioritise what needs to be put right and changed” and identified as possible priorities the protection of victims of domestic violence and looking again at the mediation system in family cases which the government had put in place, but was not working.     The cross-bench peer, Colin Low spoke at the meeting about the Low Commission’s report on social welfare law. Lord Low believes the “problems caused by people not being able to get advice are not going away and will be staring the next government in the face” whatever its political make-up. He urged for all of the political parties to look at adopting the Commission’s recommendations, which include a ten year strategy for advice and legal support, as well as a £50m contribution from the government to create a fund for local advice services.     This morning’s meeting definitely had a new term feeling about it. The politicians seem less focused on the legislation to be considered, but on the general election now only eight months away. Andy Slaughter seemed to acknowledge the opportunity this gave the practitioners and campaigners in the room by saying that “you should lobby us over what the priorities should be” for legal aid and the justice system. LAG believes that the challenge facing everyone concerned with access to justice is to ensure the issue is not lost in the maelstrom of competing policy priorities in the run-up to 7th May 2015.