House of Lords written statement – made at on 28 November 2006.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
Secretary of State, Department for Constitutional Affairs, Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs and Lord Chancellor
I am publishing Legal Aid Reform: The Way Ahead (Cm 6993). This sets out how we will reform the procurement of legal aid services, moving towards a market-based system. It takes account of the responses that we received to the consultation paper Legal Aid: A Sustainable Future (CP 13/06), which was published simultaneously on
Our reforms to legal aid procurement fit squarely within the Government's wider programme of reform across the justice system. We are promoting simple, speedy, summary justice in the criminal courts and modernising the legal sector through the introduction of the Legal Services Bill last Thursday. The proposed changes to legal aid procurement represent another important part of this programme and will bring benefits for clients, taxpayers, the legal profession and the wider justice system. The reforms will ensure that we have a modern legal aid system and a legal profession that is customer-focused and in which the public have confidence.
The consultation period closed on
The Legal Aid Reform: The Way Ahead paper sets out how the Department for Constitutional Affairs and the Legal Services Commission will deliver a new system of legal aid procurement. The reforms will set legal aid on a sustainable footing for the future and will ensure that the most vulnerable people in our society receive the help that they need. The reforms will ensure a future in which the legal advice provided is of the highest quality and practitioners are able to make a decent financial return, and a future in which access to justice remains at the heart of our society.
We are fully committed to the market-based approach set out by Lord Carter. We will move to fixed and graduated fees as a transitional step to best-value competition. However, we have listened carefully to the concerns expressed by legal aid practitioners. We have therefore made significant adjustments to the timing and sequencing of some of the proposed schemes, as well as to the detail of some of the original proposals, where we believe that they will bring improvements.
In summary, we are proceeding with Lord Carter's proposals and we are delivering on our commitment to rebalance the funding between civil and criminal legal aid.
The approach set out in the Legal Aid Reform: The Way Ahead paper offers the best guarantee of an affordable, good-quality legal aid system that will protect the vulnerable and is fair to taxpayers, fair to defendants and fair for practitioners.
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