Human rights select committee to investigate civil legal aid cuts

Grayling warns he will not 'go back to the start' on criminal legal aid

The Commons joint committee on human rights, chaired by Welsh-speaking Labour MP Hywel Francis, has today launched an inquiry into the implications of the further cuts in civil legal aid demanded by justice secretary Chris Grayling.

Earlier this month, at the justice select committee, Grayling announced a rethink on his plans for price-competitive tendering and criminal legal aid.

On civil legal aid, he made only one minor concession, agreeing that the new residency test would not apply to babies aged younger than 12 months.

Grayling strongly defended cuts to prison law and the restrictions on judicial review, such as limiting legal aid to successful applications.

Nor did he give any ground on the fourth item on the select committee's agenda - removing legal aid from 'borderline' cases.

The further cuts to civil legal aid outlined in the MoJ's Transforming Legal Aid consultation paper are due to be implemented this autumn.

However, the joint committee on human rights said it had written to the government asking it not to implement them until after it had held its hearings in October and published its report later in the year.

The committee has issued a call for written evidence on the human rights implications of the cuts, which can be submitted directly online through the committee's portal, by 27 September.

In a separate development, the justice select committee has said in its report on the legal aid cuts that it intended to invite the justice secretary back for a second session to explain the government's response to the first consultation and discuss its latest proposals.

In a letter to the committee, the justice secretary said he could not provide more details of the timing of the second consultation and warned: "This will not be a re-consultation on every element of the package.

"As I said at the committee session, we are not going back to the start and must bear down on the cost of legal aid."

He said the MoJ's current projections for post-LASPO legal aid spending, if fee levels remained the same, were £1.836bn for 2013-14, falling to £1.719bn for 2014-15, £1.679bn for 2015-16 and 1.666bn for the following year.