CRIMINAL barristers edged towards strike action over legal aid pay rates yesterday, with an ultimatum to ministers to commit to a review of their fees.
The Bar set ministers a deadline of July 14 to announce a review of rates of pay for criminal barristers. The rates have been pegged for eight years.
It is now one year since the Government said it would start a review of the pay scheme for criminal barristers. But the Bar Council said yesterday that no review had taken place.
In a letter to Lord Falconer of Thoroton, the Lord Chancellor, Gay Mansfield QC, chairman of the Bar Council, said that any review should be completed by mid-September.
Andrew Hall QC, chairman of the Bar Council’s remuneration committee, has given warning that the criminal legal aid system is at risk of collapse.