Legal aid barristers should stop billing by the hour and move towards fixed fees, Bar Council chairman Geoffrey Vos stated in his speech at the Conservative Party Conference yesterday (2 October).

The speech, outlining Vos' vision for the future of justice, heard him call for fixed-fee payments per case, especially in high-cost cases, which currently consume a large portion of the legal aid budget.

He said: "In all areas, not least in very high-cost cases, we must move away from an hourly rate of pay and instead pay by the case with a properly graduated fees system."