Editor's blog | All together now

Uniting lawyers is no easy thing, but it seems that the government's plans for criminal legal aid have achieved it. Solicitors, barristers, law firms large and small are all resolutely opposed to the proposals for price-competitive tendering or PCT.

Meetings have been held by criminal law firms and chambers across England and Wales and more and will be held over the next few weeks. Some have voted not to bid for the new contracts. Others have expressed unanimous opposition to it.

It is difficult to know which aspect of the plans criminal lawyers most dislike. There is the breach of a fundamental and cherished principle that the client has a choice of lawyer. There are the practical problems for big firms, faced with massive drops in the amount of legal aid work they can do and for small firms, which could be cut out of the picture altogether.

And then there are the fee cuts, of up to 30 per cent for very high cost cases and by 17.5 per cent or more across the board, depending on how low you pitch your bid.

All this is a far cry from the previous government's abortive attempt to introduce 'best value' tendering. The big firms may even regard this form of tendering, in retrospect, as relatively benign. Certainly they were involved in discussions at the Ministry of Justice over economies of scale, and a system which would give them more of the work at a lower price per case. The current government is not even talking to them.

Politics, rather than austerity, is in the driving seat. Austerity merely creates an atmosphere in which extreme measures are easier to push through. Justice must be cut to pieces to pay for an increased health and ring-fenced education budget. Nobody cares about criminals, and the less we spend on their lawyers, the better. Attractive as these views might be to many members of the public, is there not also a fear, at the back of their minds, that one day they might be accused of a crime they didn't commit? Are those people proud of being British not in any way concerned about what could soon happen to British justice?

In the meantime, the outbreak of unity now sweeping the criminal side of the profession must be maintained. The justice secretary has already suggested that he has been 'kind' to barristers by keeping Crown Court work outside the new system. If they misbehave, he might think again. As for solicitors, the Ministry of Justice has hinted that if they don't apply for the new contracts, their fees will simply be cut by 20 per cent. It's going to be a tough battle.