Conservatives: fairness for all

Only the Conservatives will have a rational debate on such issues as the NHS, Europe, legal aid and human rights, says Andrew Kidd

In the run up to the May general election, SJ will run a series of articles featuring legal practitioners in support of their chosen party

If the election campaign could be summarised in one word, I suggest it would be "fairness". This election should, therefore, hold a particular appeal for us fair-minded lawyers.

Conservatives believe in a fair society. Churchill expressed it most succinctly when he said society should create "a limit beneath which no man may fall, but no limit to which any man might rise".

Nevertheless, we are told that this Conservative-led coalition favours only the "rich" and that "fairness" would be for the rich  to shoulder more of the burden of recovery. But take income tax, for example, the reality is that the top 1 per cent of earners now contribute a record 29.8 per cent of all income tax, and the top 16 per cent of earners pay 67 per cent.

The system of the state taking our money is as fair as it can be: the more you earn, the more you pay. If you increase the top rate of tax to 50p - as Labour promises to do, even though it chose not to for almost all its last term of office - you introduce a punitive element. And while that may appeal to the "anti-capitalist" sentiment which Labour has successfully whipped up, it would be counterproductive. Studies show lower tax rates result in a higher tax take for the Exchequer. In the words of John F. Kennedy, "the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut rates now".

Legal aid

Parts of the profession will no doubt use 7 May as a protest against Chris Grayling's legal aid reforms, which Labour's shadow justice minister Andy Slaughter has confirmed he will not seek to reverse, and nothing I say here will dissuade them from doing so. For those whose livelihoods have been affected I have some sympathy, but the reforms must be judged against the reality  that we had one of the most expensive legal aid systems in the world.

The reforms were not ideological but necessary in order to make legal aid sustainable for those who need it, and for the taxpayer, who ultimately pays for it. Vested interests will never vote for cost cutting in the same way that turkeys will never vote for Christmas.

Unlike some lawyers, who have sneered at Grayling for being the first Lord Chancellor not to be a lawyer in 440 years, I can see the merit of having a non-lawyer devising efficiency. As he says himself, not having a vested interest affords him the ability to make objective decisions for the good of society.