In February, the Law Society issued a pre-action protocol letter as the first step in a judicial review to challenge the government’s plans to run the civil courts on a profit-making basis. Lord Andrew Phillips, a founder and patron of LAG, spoke out against the increases in a debate on the changes to civil court fees in the House of Lords which took place last month.

Money claims above the small claims limit (currently £10,000) will experience the most dramatic rises. Fees for cases worth £10,000 have increased from £225 in 2009–10 to £500, a rise of 122 per cent. This is overshadowed by the rise in fees for cases worth between £10,000 and £200,000: the fees for these cases will be calculated as 5 per cent of the value of the claim, with a maximum ceiling of £10,000 (a rise of over 600 per cent) in the most expensive cases.

The Law Society, Bar Council and Chartered Institute of Legal Executives (CILEX) believe that the increases in fees for money claims will act as a significant barrier to justice. Based on examples from over 200 law firms, they fear that the value of cases brought by individuals will fall by 35 per cent and by 49 per cent for small and medium-sized businesses, respectively.

Lord Phillips, speaking in a debate in the Lords on 4 March, strongly criticised section 180 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, which allows the government to set court fees above the cost of providing the service. Calling it ‘an astonishing clause’ which allowed the government to ‘make a profit out of justice’, he wondered if it ‘could withstand oversight of the courts on human rights grounds’.

LAG has also expressed concerns about the increases in fees for rent possession cases. According to LAG’s director, Steve Hynes, when the coalition government came to power in 2010, fees in possession cases were £150. He says that ‘there has been a startling increase in these fees over the past five years.’ In 2014, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) increased the fees for issuing non-money claims, which include possession cases, by 60 per cent (up from £175 in 2011 to £280 in 2014). Last month, these were increased by a further 26.8 per cent to £355. Hynes argues that ‘increasing fees in possession cases amounts to a direct attack on those who are poor and vulnerable, and LAG would urge the government to rethink this policy’.

Lord Faulks, the Conservative Minister of State at the MoJ, argued in the Lords debate that the fees were necessary ‘to ensure the courts were properly funded’. He said the fee increases would generate an additional £120m in revenue which would be ‘retained by the courts’.