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MPs slam LASPO cuts as ‘deeply disturbing’
The influential Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has published a highly critical report on the government’s implementation of the civil legal aid reforms, which were introduced by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012.
Margaret Hodge, chair of the PAC, described it as ‘deeply disturbing that the Ministry of Justice’s changes to civil legal aid were based not on evidence, but on an objective to cut costs as quickly as possible’.
Hodge criticised the MoJ for failing to understand what the reforms ‘mean for people’, and its lack of understanding of the reasons behind the public needing to access the courts and legal aid.
The PAC report, Implementing reforms to civil legal aid, makes seven main recommendations, including the need for the MoJ to evaluate the wider costs to the public sector of the reductions in civil legal aid.
Hodge, who has proved a highly effective chair of the PAC, is the widow of Henry Hodge, the pioneering legal aid solicitor and founder of Hodge Jones & Allen.