The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Dominic
Raab) Today I am publishing the Government’s response to the
independent review of criminal legal aid. Copies are available in
the House. Our proposals will put criminal legal aid on a stable
and sustainable footing for the future. They will help to deliver
this Government’s objectives of delivering swift access to justice,
and they will usher in the reform we need at this crossroads moment
as we build back a...Request free trial
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice ()
Today I am publishing the Government’s response to the
independent review of criminal legal aid. Copies are available in
the House. Our proposals will put criminal legal aid on a stable
and sustainable footing for the future. They will help to deliver
this Government’s objectives of delivering swift access to
justice, and they will usher in the reform we need at this
crossroads moment as we build back a stronger and fairer society
after this debilitating pandemic.
Covid-19 has been exceptionally challenging across our justice
system. We owe our whole legal profession—the solicitors, the
barristers, the judges and the court staff—an enormous debt of
gratitude for keeping the wheels of justice turning over the past
two years. Thanks to their efforts, we are driving down the court
backlog and returning to a more normal way of working—in the
interests of victims, witnesses, and of course the wider public.
I thank Sir Christopher Bellamy for his comprehensive and
invaluable review, along with his panel of experts and everyone
else who contributed their views.
As I said, this is a crossroads moment. Our legal aid system
needs investment if defendants are to have access to the
highest-quality advice and advocacy, and if we are to ensure a
sustainable criminal legal profession right into the future. To
that end, Sir Christopher made two headline recommendations in
his review. First, he proposed an increase of 15% in the various
criminal legal aid fee schemes. I have accepted this in almost
all respects, except where it risks introducing perverse
incentives—for example, if it were to be applied to the rate of
pages of prosecution evidence.
Secondly, Sir Christopher recommended an overall increase in
investment in criminal legal aid of £135 million. Our package of
reforms, announced today, matches that recommendation. As part of
that, we will hold £20 million aside each year for longer-term
investment, including reform of the litigators graduated fee
scheme, the youth court, and the wider sustainability and
development of solicitors’ practice, so that the system pays
more, and more fairly, for the work actually done. On top of our
additional funding to support court recovery, this will take
taxpayer funding of criminal legal aid to £1.2 billion—the
highest level in a decade.
Let me now unpack some of this for the House. In the short term,
our cash injection will give a 15% boost to police station work,
magistrates court work, much of the Crown Court work of advocates
and litigators, and the work of solicitors in very-high-cost
cases, as well as some of the smaller schemes. While getting pay
and conditions right is clearly critical, Sir Christopher also
made a number of wider systemic recommendations about the future
of criminal legal aid that we also intend to take forward. We
will reform fee schemes so that they properly and fairly reflect
the way our legal professions work in the real world today. We
will increase the diversity of our legal professions, promote a
more sustainable criminal defence market, and harness the power
of new technology.
Supporting a sustainable, diverse and stable criminal defence
market depends both on the right fees and on having an adequate
supply of legal practitioners, so we propose to review the
standard crime contract to reduce barriers to innovative ways of
doing business. We will offer grants for training contracts for
criminal solicitors, and for solicitor advocates to gain higher
rights of audience, expanding the supply of high-quality lawyers
in the system. The Chartered Institute of Legal Executives has
helped to remove barriers to entry into the profession and, in
particular, has helped to promote non-graduate routes into the
law. We want to take those reforms further again. So under our
proposals, CILEX professionals will be able to become duty
solicitors without having to achieve additional
qualifications.
Work as a duty solicitor often involves unsocial hours and
lengthy travel, making it hard for those with caring
responsibilities, who are disproportionately women, to pursue a
career in criminal defence. We want to make it easier for
everyone to work in this area, so we will explore new ways of
delivering remote legal advice in police stations. As Sir
Christopher highlighted, the sustainability of the criminal
solicitor profession is a particular challenge, so today I am
proposing to expand the Public Defender Service, focusing on
areas where more capacity is needed. That means that when there
is risk of market failure, we will have a more flexible range of
options to address it.
Next, Sir Christopher recommended that I propose an advisory
board that will help represent all parts of the profession and
shape future criminal legal aid policy. We will also gather views
on how and where the innovative new technology that is helping us
with the backlog can be used to even greater effect.
Our proposals respond to the full range of Sir Christopher’s
review. They will increase efficiency across our system and
deliver swifter justice for victims and defendants by
incentivising early advice and resolution where that is right and
proper. They will reinforce a more sustainable market, with
publicly funded criminal defence practice seen as a viable,
long-term career choice, attracting the brightest and best from
all backgrounds and providing a further pipeline for the judges
of tomorrow. It is only right that, as we reinforce the supply
and sustainability of legal practice, we look closely at those
who our legal system and our legal aid system are there to
support, namely those who need legal representation and cannot
afford to pay for it themselves.
The thresholds for eligibility for legal aid, which have not been
raised for more than a decade, need to be reviewed, and it is
timely to review them as we consider our wider reforms. Today, we
have launched a separate consultation on legal aid means-testing.
Our proposals will ensure a fairer justice system that targets
legal aid towards the people who need it most—those least able to
pay and the most vulnerable in our society. No one’s income or
financial situation should stop them enforcing their legal rights
or defending themselves when they have been accused of a crime.
That is why this Government propose to significantly increase
income and capital thresholds for civil and criminal legal aid,
so that even more people in England and Wales will qualify for
that support.
A funding boost of £20 million means that more than 2 million
more people in England and Wales will be eligible for civil legal
aid each year, and 3.5 million more will be eligible for legal
aid to fund their defence at the magistrates court. We will
exclude disputed assets from the civil legal aid means test. That
move will particularly benefit victims of domestic abuse where
the abuser is controlling assets. We will also remove the
financial cap on legal aid eligibility in the Crown court for all
defendants, so that everyone can access the right support at the
right time.
At the same time, we will remove means-testing entirely for legal
proceedings brought by parents whose children are facing the
withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment. At the worst time in any
parent’s life, those parents must and should have access to
proper advice and representation, and they should not be expected
to shoulder the burden themselves.
The proposals I have set out today represent a major investment
in our legal aid system. They will ensure our justice system is
fair, fit for the future and supported by a thriving and diverse
legal profession, and that it delivers swifter and fairer justice
across our society. I commend this statement to the House.
(Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)
I thank the Justice Secretary for advance sight of his statement.
I could not agree more that we owe our whole legal
profession—solicitors, barristers, court staff and judiciary—a
debt of gratitude for keeping the wheels of justice turning over
the last two years. I pay tribute to their hard work in helping
deliver justice for victims. I also put on record my thanks to
Sir Christopher Bellamy and the rest of the team for their
work.
Today’s announcement and response to the Bellamy review is
welcome, particularly the Government’s commitment to increase
legal aid rates by the 15% that Sir Christopher Bellamy
recommended. The proposed restructure of the fee schemes will
benefit members of the public and the profession alike.
Similarly, we welcome having an independent advisory board to
keep policy matters pertaining to criminal defence under review.
Can the Justice Secretary outline the membership of the advisory
board? Will he ensure that it is both representative and diverse,
to help deliver meaningful change?
We will study many of the other measures that the Justice
Secretary has mentioned, including the reforms of the duty
solicitor scheme, in more detail. However, if the Government
accept that criminal legal aid is in a perilous state, the same
is surely true of civil legal aid, where decades of cuts and
underfunding have crippled practitioners, and we are seeing the
same recruitment and retention crisis. Urgent investment is
necessary, and the Ministry of Justice has yet to publish any
details on the civil sustainability review. We are suffering from
serial underfunding of the entire legal aid sector, paired with a
strict means test and a huge backlog in the criminal courts.
We know that justice delayed is justice denied, and victims are
paying the price. Between 2012 and 2020, annual legal aid
spending fell by 27% in real terms, largely as the result of
changes under the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of
Offenders Act 2012. That is £4.2 billion over a seven-year
period—an average of £600 million a year. Essentially, we have a
position where it is simply not financially viable to be a legal
aid provider in many areas of law. The Government have accepted
that to be the case in criminal law, but the maths is no
different in civil law. There is no doubt in my mind that the
legal aid sector has survived purely on good will, and I know
that at first hand as a former lawyer. Chronic underfunding has
brought the criminal justice system to its knees and created
advice deserts across the UK. The steps outlined today are too
little, too late.
There can be no surprise then that the profession has voted with
its feet. Just a few days ago, 94% of the membership of the
Criminal Bar Association voted to take industrial action. That
will have a disastrous impact on the backlog in the criminal
courts that existed well before the beginning of the pandemic.
The Government may find the profession does not accept their
response, their appreciation of the urgency or the time it will
take to implement. Can the Lord Chancellor set out when the
recommendations will take effect? Victims have waited long
enough.
While the means test review for both criminal and civil legal aid
is welcome, it is of little use to the public if they are
eligible for legal aid but cannot access the provider base.
Advice deserts are a direct result of the negative impact caused
by reductions in legal aid funding. There is no justice if there
is no access to justice.
The Justice Secretary claims this is a major investment in the
criminal justice system, but make no mistake: it is the absolute
bare minimum, and it does not fix a decade of Tory austerity. It
fails victims at every turn. The erosion of access to legal aid
represents a threat to the rule of law. It does not matter what
legal rights an individual has on paper if they do not have the
means to uphold them. The Government pay lip service to levelling
up the country. When will they level up access to justice?
I thank the hon. Gentleman for what he said about the criminal
legal aid proposals and the means test review. The announcement
today is principally about criminal legal aid, and if I have
understood him correctly, he backs us on all the criminal legal
aid proposals.
Can I be clear in relation to the CBA ballot? If the hon.
Gentleman welcomes our proposals, presumably he would agree, as I
hope would others across the House, that it is totally
unwarranted for the CBA now to proceed with strike action.
The hon. Gentleman asked about timing. On criminal legal aid, we
will consult for 12 weeks. I would expect him to agree that we
should follow the normal public law principles to have that
consultation, otherwise we are exposed to a greater risk of
judicial review.
indicated assent.
The hon. Gentleman is nodding, and I am pleased that he does
support that, even if some of his colleagues do not. We will then
introduce a statutory instrument so that the proposals enter into
force in October.
The hon. Gentleman talked about cuts to legal aid. I remind him
that a previous Justice Secretary, , had plans to cut almost £200
million a year from the legal aid budget in 2009, as was made
clear by the noble lord Lord Carter, who said,
“we had to break the hold of the criminal practitioners and force
them to restructure so we could get more control over the costs
of provision”.
In relation to our criminal legal aid proposals, we are ensuring
that we have a sustainable system that supports practitioners
but, above all, supports victims, witnesses and the society that
we want to build after the pandemic.
I gently remind the hon. Gentleman that there will be 2 million
more people with access to civil legal aid, which he mentioned,
and 3.5 million more people with access to criminal legal aid in
the magistrates courts. I thank him for his pretty fulsome
support for the criminal legal aid proposals. I urge him to
reflect on and recall the Labour party’s proposition before the
2010 election. I hope that he will be clear that it is totally
unwarranted for the CBA to now proceed with strike action.
Madam Deputy Speaker ( )
I call the Chair of the Justice Committee, .
(Bromley and Chislehurst)
(Con)
This is a very welcome announcement and I congratulate the
Secretary of State on taking on board Sir Christopher Bellamy’s
recommendations. I join him in thanking Sir Christopher for his
report and all those in the legal profession who have kept the
system going under real difficulty. In appreciating the real
difficulty that the profession has been undergoing in these
times, does he agree that it is important, in order to get this
right, to have the earliest possible increase and to take on
board the words of the chair of the Bar Council, who says:
“We will work with the Ministry of Justice to make sure the funds
are delivered swiftly, effectively, and fairly.”?
Can we meet the Bar Council and the profession in that spirit of
co-operation and get this implemented at the earliest lawful
opportunity?
My hon. Friend the Chair of the Select Committee is absolutely
right and I welcome the constructive responses from the Bar
Council and the Law Society. He is right that we must do it as
swiftly as possible, but he makes an important point that we must
do it lawfully. We are following the normal public law principles
in having a 12-week consultation. As I have indicated, we intend
to bring the proposals into force through an SI by October. I
hope that that strikes the right balance. As he and, in fairness,
the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton () said, we extend our gratitude
to all the lawyers—solicitors and barristers—judges and court
staff who have done an incredible job through a very difficult
couple of years.
(Hammersmith) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State now accept that the swingeing cuts in
the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012
have hobbled access to justice for a decade? Does he accept what
the chair of the Criminal Bar Association, Jo Sidhu, said about
the announcement today, which was that it
“will not be sufficient to retain enough criminal barristers to
keep the wheels of justice turning and that means victims will be
failed”?
If he does not accept that, what effect will it have on the
backlog? He currently has a pathetic target to reduce the backlog
to 53,000 cases over the next three years. If this is a
groundbreaking change, what effect will it have on that
backlog?
We will take no lectures from the hon. Gentleman given that he
was there at the time that Labour was planning those swingeing
cuts and, indeed, he backed them. Only now, when we have had to
deal with the financial consequences of the economic mess that
the last Labour Government left behind and put ourselves on a
sustainable footing with the biggest investment in legal aid for
a decade, he is complaining.
The Crown court backlog and the magistrates court backlog are
coming down. Again, I did not hear from him a clear statement
that strike action would be not only unwarranted but the last
thing we need as we build back and recover in our Crown courts
and magistrates courts.
Sir (South Swindon) (Con)
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. I am glad that he has
followed the excellent recommendations of Sir Christopher Bellamy
and I am glad to see the work that I started coming to fruition.
He is right to draw a contrast between the approach and language
in the Bellamy report and some of the hostile environment,
frankly, that the criminal Bar had to put up with under the last
Labour Government, which I remember very well. I also commend the
raising of the threshold on civil legal aid, which will be one of
the single biggest extensions of eligibility that we have seen in
many a year. May I press him on the consultation period? I agree
that he is absolutely right to follow public law principles, but
I suggest that a slightly shorter period of eight weeks followed
by an SI could deliver the necessary changes in an even shorter
time.
I pay tribute to the huge amount of work that my right hon. and
learned Friend did, which I was fortunate to inherit, before we
came forward with our proposals. I agree with much of what he has
said and done in this area. He is right to talk about the
environment and the climate within which we talk about lawyers,
because it was of course under the last Labour Government that
they named and shamed lawyers for earning too much in fees.
[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Hammersmith () is chuntering from a
sedentary position, but he is guilty of doing exactly that under
the last Labour Government. We have not done that; we have
engaged in a sober and sensible way because we understand the
value of the legal profession, both barristers and
solicitors.
I understand my right hon. and learned Friend’s call for a
slightly shorter consultation period but, given the legal risk
that I have been advised on, shortening it from 12 weeks to eight
weeks does not seem the right thing to do. The consultation
period is there not just as a legal matter but to ensure that we
can tease out all the detail of the reforms, such as the
implications of the fees and of the wider systemic reforms that
we are introducing. It is right to take that time and I cannot
see how a difference of four weeks can justify strike action in
this case.
(Westminster North) (Lab)
The Government cannot swerve responsibility for having made the
largest cuts that have ever been made to the legal aid budget,
which have brought civil and criminal providers to their knees.
The whole service is held together by good will. As chair of the
all-party parliamentary group on legal aid, I welcome every
single penny that comes back into the service, but the fact
remains that there is a crisis of capacity. Our inquiry report a
few months ago showed just how many providers are closing and
have been closing every month over recent years. I ask the
Secretary of State exactly what steps he will now take to deal
with the crisis in the provision of civil legal aid—he did not
answer that in response to my hon. Friend the Member for
Manchester, Gorton ()—not least to accommodate the
additional demand for service that will now flow into it as an
admittedly welcome consequence of adjustments to the means
test.
I think the hon. Lady was also around at the time when the Labour
Government were planning their cuts. [Interruption.] She does not
like it, but I remind her that it was who said that the Labour
Government would
“derail the gravy train of legal aid”,
so I am afraid that she cannot come to the House with those
crocodile tears. On her substantive point, however, the
consultation on expanding the Public Defender Service and the 15%
raise in legal fees will deal with the scarcity of legal aid
practitioners in certain areas. As I have already said in
relation to the means test review, millions of extra people will
become eligible for civil legal aid, which she should
welcome.
(Kenilworth and Southam)
(Con)
I, too, welcome what my right hon. Friend has announced. He is
right to focus on attracting bright young lawyers into criminal
defence work. Does he also recognise that it is important to
retain more experienced criminal defence lawyers who can take on
the complex cases that, as he will appreciate, form a larger and
larger proportion of the criminal courts caseload?
Specifically in relation to pages of prosecution evidence, I
understand that my right hon. Friend is following one of Sir
Christopher’s recommendations in that respect, but he will
understand that that has been a proxy for the complexity and
difficulty of criminal cases for some time. If we are not to
increase fees in that regard, how does he intend to reflect those
complex and difficult cases?
I agree with many of my right hon. and learned Friend’s points.
He makes the right point that we must ensure that we still have
the expertise we need at the high end of the profession. In
relation to the rate of pages of prosecution evidence, he will
know that we want to ensure that we do not encourage perverse
incentives. I am not suggesting that that is done deliberately,
but systemically it is something that we need to look at, and it
is right to do so. Instead, as set out in the Government’s
response, we will invite views on the longer term reform of the
litigators’ graduated fee scheme to include the optimal basic
structure of litigator remuneration, the role of pages of
prosecution evidence in determining fees and what data should be
collected to enable a thorough examination of litigator
preparatory work. I hope that will address the points made.
(Bath) (LD)
For years, the south-west has been called a legal aid desert.
There is currently a huge backlog in the courts; legal aid is one
part of the problem and workforce another. Justice delayed is
justice denied. Can the Secretary of State tell me what immediate
difference this statement will make to the thousands of victims
in the south-west who are waiting for justice or who cannot even
get justice now?
The proposals on the Public Defender Service and the means test
review, and the increase in the fees, will all look across the
board at areas where there is a scarcity of supply of
practitioners willing to take on that work, in order to fill the
gaps. I look forward to that and I hope that the hon. Lady will
contribute to the consultation.
(Newbury) (Con)
The Government are to be congratulated on accepting Sir
Christopher’s headline recommendations in full. I saw how much
care and consideration went into that piece of work, but I would
like to ask my right hon. Friend about chapter 13 of the report,
which deals with fee income at the criminal Bar. Sir Christopher
found that at every level of seniority female barristers earned
less than their male counterparts, on average by 34%. He also
found that non-white criminal practitioners earned less than
white criminal practitioners by an average of 10%. What
reassurances can he provide that this significant injection of
public money will not be used to sustain potentially unlawful pay
disparities?
I thank my hon. Friend for raising this very important point. In
2020, the gender balance at the point of entry among specialist
criminal barristers was roughly 50:50, but at the senior level
there is a much higher imbalance, with a ratio of 70:30 men to
women. What are we doing about that? Our fees changes, for
example in relation to duty solicitors, will particularly support
younger lawyers. They will disproportionately help women with
caring responsibilities.
We are also looking at further diversification through the roles
and the rights that CILEX members can acquire. CILEX has allowed
non-graduate routes into the profession, and I think 76% of its
members are women. More generally, breaking down glass ceilings
and barriers to entry into the profession is important. Beyond
fees, the consultation will allow us to consult and to understand
what more we can do systemically to attract a broader diversity
of practitioners into the profession and then, critically, allow
them to flourish.
(Rhondda) (Lab)
The Secretary of State is right to say that we need to deliver
swifter justice for victims, but if you will allow me a slight
detour, Madam Deputy Speaker, do we not also need to deliver
swifter justice to victims of war crimes in Ukraine? What is the
Government’s attitude now towards the International Criminal
Court? I think he would agree that attacking a nuclear power
station or civilians is a war crime, but will he ensure that it
is a war crime to initiate a war of aggression?
I share the hon. Gentleman’s interest in this subject and it is a
timely, if circuitous, question, because I was in The Hague
yesterday, where I met the ICC chief prosecutor and the president
of the court; as he Gentleman knows, the ICC is independent and
it is for it to determine those issues. I think I was the first
Justice Minister to go there, and I was clear that we will
provide a package of support, including financial and technical
assistance, to enable the office of the prosecutor to do its job.
We will be co-ordinating with our allies and our key partners so
that is a concerted effort. The message needs to go out to Putin
and to every commander on the ground in Ukraine that if they
follow illegal orders they will end up in the dock of a court in
The Hague and potentially in prison.
(Harrow East) (Con)
I will resist the temptation to broaden questions about the
statement still further.
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his statement. Will he
confirm that the intention is to increase the thresholds each
year in line with inflation, so that we do not get to the same
position we are in now? If so, what factor of inflation will he
include on an annual basis? Finally, what impact does he expect
this measure to have on the youth courts?
I thank my hon. Friend for what he has said. We do not plan to
index the thresholds, but he makes a reasonable point. We will
obviously need to keep them under regular review, but this is a
big step change in the threshold and we will keep a close eye on
the impact that inflation has on them. More broadly, he asks
about the youth courts, which are a crucial part of the system.
We are proposing a general uplift of 15% to magistrates courts
fees, and the youth courts will be included in that uplift.
(Lewisham, Deptford)
(Lab)
Will the review of legal aid specifically look at how disabled
people can enforce their rights under the Equality Act 2010?
The review does not specifically deal with that, but if the hon.
Lady and other groups would like to make submissions to the
review, I will ensure they are properly taken into account.
(Newcastle-under-Lyme)
(Con)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement about the increased
funding of £135 million a year. Can he confirm that that extra
funding will mean that more of my constituents in
Newcastle-under-Lyme will be covered by legal aid, so that they
will be able to exercise their legal rights and defend themselves
if they are accused?
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We should never forget that
as important as the legal profession is—we have all paid tribute
to its members—the legal and justice system is there for my hon.
Friend’s constituents and those of hon. Members across the House;
for victims, witnesses and the public at large.
(Barnsley East) (Lab)
Criminal legal aid issues have become particularly acute in
Barnsley in the last few days because the roof of Sheffield
magistrates court has fallen in, meaning that defendants are
queueing up in Barnsley. Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree
that this a damning indictment of the legal system under his
Government?
Of course we will look at all courts with maintenance issues, but
in reality record investment in magistrates courts has been
secured in this spending review. We have increased the sentencing
powers of the magistrates courts from six to 12 months, and we
are further supporting the practitioners who serve those courts
with the measures we have announced today.
(Broadland) (Con)
Sir Christopher Bellamy’s review of criminal legal aid was based
on two overriding principles: that remuneration of criminal
lawyers should be such as to attract the right legal talent that
the system requires, and that there should be equality of arms so
that the resources available to defence are broadly similar to
those available to prosecution. Does my right hon. Friend agree
that those are the right principles for civil legal aid as well
as criminal legal aid?
The criminal legal aid system is different from the civil legal
aid system, but the overarching principles and the need to ensure
access to justice are common to both. That is why under the means
test review we have ensured not only that 3.5 million more people
will have access to criminal legal aid in the magistrates courts,
but that 2 million more will have access to civil legal aid,
which I hope addresses my hon. Friend’s concern.
(Strangford) (DUP)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. Although it relates
to England and Wales, I would like to see this being part of the
work that the Northern Ireland Assembly is doing on policing and
justice. While decent pay for lawyers, and thereby increased
ability of the working poor to gain access to civil legal aid, is
welcome, and while there seems to be the necessary movement
towards that in what we have heard today, can the Secretary of
State assure us that those who need help will now get it?
Historically, that has not been the case.
The proposals that we set out today apply to England and Wales—we
respect the devolved competences—and we believe they will
effectively address systemic issues across the justice system. I
was in Belfast recently, and I have had engagement with all
parties in relation to justice issues. We have a lot to learn
from all jurisdictions across the UK and we will continue that
two-way dialogue.
(Kingston upon Hull East)
(Lab)
I declare an interest as a former practitioner both as a criminal
solicitor and, indeed, at the criminal Bar. I compliment and
commend the former Justice Secretary for appointing Sir
Christopher, who did an incredibly difficult job and did it
incredibly well. However, barristers are about to do something
that they do not want to do, which is to take action—industrial
action—because this Government have brought the criminal justice
system to its knees over a decade. The problem is that they do
not have confidence in the Justice Secretary, and for good
reason. The Government have already significantly underestimated
their expenditure on the accelerated items of the criminal legal
aid review by 80%, so how can they believe that the money will in
any event come to them? The real problem is that the money is
needed now—not in three months, but immediately—and that is how
he will prevent industrial action by the criminal Bar.
The hon. Gentleman seems to be the shop steward for what I think
is totally unwarranted industrial action, which was balloted for
before we had announced our proposals. I hope the Criminal Bar
Association will take the more constructive tone we have heard
from the other practitioner groups, because if he commended my
right hon. and learned Friend my predecessor for appointing Sir
Christopher, he surely must welcome the Government’s acceptance
of the proposals he has made virtually in full.
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