Grayling to announce more legal aid cuts tomorrow

The justice secretary, Chris Grayling, is to announce further cuts in legal aid tomorrow.

Coming less than two weeks after the drastic cuts in the civil legal aid scheme introduced by LASPO, the latest proposals will include a 12 month residency test before migrants, apart from asylum seekers, can access civil legal aid.

A spokeswoman for the MoJ said this morning that someone entering the country on a tourist visa could still get access to civil legal aid.

She said Grayling would also give details tomorrow on how he hopes to cut the more than 1bn spent on the criminal legal aid scheme.

The government's consultation on price-competitive tendering is expected either to be launched or at least a timetable set out.

The justice secretary called last week for further cuts in legal aid for prisoners, which is to form part of the consultation.

According to today's Daily Telegraph, Grayling will also outline further restrictions for judicial reviews.

The government has already consulted on increasing fees for judicial reviews and reducing time limits.

In the latest change, the newspaper reports that publicly funded applicants would pay the preparation costs for both sides until the case was accepted or rejected by a court. If it was accepted, legal aid could be used to recover most of the cost.

"It is important that people can challenge decisions made by public authorities, but I'm concerned that legal aid is being used to fund a number of weak judicial review cases," Grayling said.

Carol Storer, director of the LAPG, said residency tests were often "extremely difficult" to implement.

She went on: "It just seems a ridiculous amount of effort to achieve very little.There are enough checks and balances in the system already."

Storer said a residency restriction on legal aid had already been considered, in 2009, but rejected on the grounds of complexity.