In a recent speech to the Newspaper Press Fund, the Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine, stated that rises in legal aid spending, and particularly criminal legal aid, are due to the present system being demand-led by greedy lawyers.

Lord Irvine is correct that the system is demand-led, but he is wrong in his choice of culprit. The system is demand-led, not by lawyers, but by those who need legal aid to have access to justice.

This comment was typical of a trend which has emerged recently. It has become the fashion for the Government to malign any criticism by the legal profession as vested interest. We provide an easy target and there is no shortage of media outlets willing to carry negative stories about us.

Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that the Bar Council and the Law Society have vigorously defended the public interest during the passage of the Lord Chancellor's flagship Access to Justice Bill.

The Government never tires of pointing out that
spending on legal aid has risen by 87% between 1991-92 and 1997-98. It provides some of the justification for its decision to abolish legal aid in areas such as personal injury. Criminal legal aid is a right under the Human Rights Act 1998 – and therefore cannot be abolished – but its cost to the public purse can be effectively controlled.

The Bar Council has taken the lead in assisting the Government in this regard.
Ninety-eight percent of cases in the Crown Court are paid for by 60% of the budget, because the Bar and the Government agreed a graduated fee scheme approved by parliament three years ago which set pre-determined rates for work in almost all cases lasting up to 10 days;

In January 1998, the Bar proposed the extension of graduated fees to cases lasting up to 20 days. The Government responded by requesting that the time limit be extended to 25 days. We agreed and are discussing with the Government the modifications to extend the scheme;

Figures cited by the Lord Chancellor's Department for the increased cost of criminal legal aid fail: a) to identify how much is referable to high cost cases; or b) to reflect the new and effective role of graduated fees in criminal cases.

l The Bar took initiatives last spring to agree with the Government, and now the Legal Aid Board, that high cost criminal cases should be paid for on a staged basis with payment for each stage agreed in advance. We expect an agreement soon.

The level of graduated fees has not risen – even to reflect inflation – in the last two years. Indeed, in the last five years the rates for fixed fees have fallen by 12% in real terms.

In the last budget year there was a real decline in all legal aid spending despite a 3% increase in the number of cases handled.
l By the year 2000 the Bar expects all legal aid work to be paid by pre-fixed graduated fees or pre-negotiated contracts in the small number of high cost cases. This will give predictability of cost and allow budgetary control.

None of these facts are ever developed by the Government, which prefers to speak of lawyers who 'bleat about their vested interests'.

Lawyers are entitled to, and should, oppose Government proposals which they consider are not in the public interest. The Government should break out of its stereotyped – and now hackneyed – view of lawyers who genuinely want the legal aid reforms to work.