Sir, Desmond Browne (“We are heading for two standards of access to justice”, Law, Nov 5) ignores a recent independent report by the Centre for Criminal Justice Economics and Psychology that showed that England and Wales have one of the highest per capita spends on legal aid in the world.
That is how we continue to provide access to justice for so many people. Every year legal aid provides about 2.5 million acts of assistance to people with their legal problems. But funding is finite. We must therefore secure value for money in everything we do and prioritise the legal aid budget effectively to ensure that it goes as far as possible in favour of civil help for those who need it most, for example, help with issues such as debt, employment or housing problems.
The Legal Services Act 2007 is clear that the Legal Services Board (LSB) will be an oversight regulator, with direct regulation continuing to be carried out by approved regulators such as the Bar Council. The LSB can only regulate directly in extreme circumstances where no other suitable regulator exists and in order to ensure protection for consumers. Any proposal to designate the LSB as a direct regulator would require parliamentary approval. With regard to comments about the alternative business structure regime, it is anticipated that this will contribute to greater access to justice by encouraging providers to adopt different roles within the marketplace, leading to greater innovation, competition, consumer choice and price reductions. Furthermore, the Act sets out a specific requirement for licensing authorities to consider the regulatory objective of improving access to justice, when deciding applications from bodies seeking to become alternative business structures.
Willy Bach
Legal Aid Minister, SW1
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Sir, For two decades vast sums have been spent on claims concerning healthcare services and products. Funding is based usually on the advice of lawyers with perverse incentives to give over-optimistic, self-serving opinions, promoting speculative litigation that is costly to often blameless defendants. It is borne out by the dismal success rates of these claims. Such monies are better spent on patient care.
Anthony Barton
London N1