Justice at a price

However, considering that Chris Grayling’s reforms will lop a mere £220m from the criminal case budget – albeit on the back of a £350m cut to legal aid in civil cases – it is clear that the big claims made by either side in this controversial debate will not hold water.

The Justice Secretary’s modest reforms will not have catastrophic consequences for the rule of law, as many lawyers like to claim. But then again, nor will they produce any significant savings in a legal system known for chronic delay and waste.

Bearing in mind, then, that Mr Grayling’s proposals may accomplish very little from the Government’s point of view, it is crucial that he ensures they come with no cost at all in the way of restricting access to justice or preventing claimants from obtaining a high standard of legal advice.

For until the price-competitive tendering for contracts is actually underway, it is likely to remain unclear if the safeguards Mr Grayling says he has built into the system are effective and lawyers’ current complaints mere scaremongering. With this in mind, therefore, it is crucial that there are adequate means of reviewing the new system once it is up and running.

In the meantime, it 
would prove useful if lawyers’ organisations, instead of criticising every attempt to reform legal aid, actually came up with constructive suggestions of their own as to how the wheels of British justice could be made to turn faster and cheaper.