London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 09, 2025

UK MPs warn of collapse of country’s ‘hollowed out’ justice system due to stagnant pay & years of government cuts in legal aid

UK MPs warn of collapse of country’s ‘hollowed out’ justice system due to stagnant pay & years of government cuts in legal aid

A UK parliamentary committee has warned that the country’s “hollowed out” justice system is at risk of failure because of poor pay for public defence lawyers, for many of whom a career in legal aid has become “less attractive.”

In a new report, the House of Commons Justice Committee has urged the government to consider implementing major reforms and conduct a review on how it funds legal aid. In this system, the state pays defence counsel fees for defendants who cannot afford to hire their own lawyer.

The report, titled ‘The Future of Legal Aid’, noted that there had not been any increase in criminal legal aid fees for the past 20 years. This has contributed to a “growing imbalance” between the ability of criminal law firms to recruit and retain staff – with many preferring to join the better-paying Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) instead.

“It is fundamental to our adversarial justice system that criminal defence services have sufficient resources to provide high-quality representation to suspects and defendants,” noted the MPs who recommended that the government should look into linking legal aid fees to CPS pay rates.

Without significant reform, the report warned of a shortage of qualified criminal legal aid lawyers. This “shift in the balance” between prosecution and defence could “compromise the fairness of the criminal justice system,” it added.


Committee chairman Bob Neill said years of government cuts to reduce the legal aid bill had “hollowed out key parts of the justice system.” As a result of fixed fees, he said, the number of people receiving legal aid is falling while legal aid firms are struggling since the costs involved in complex cases cannot be covered.

“The legal aid system is there to ensure that everyone has access to justice. If the most vulnerable in society are being left to navigate the justice system on their own then fairness is lost and the system has failed,” Neill said.

The committee also pointed to reports by legal aid providers of a “culture of refusal” at the Legal Aid Agency, which is the body within the Ministry of Justice that oversees legal aid in England and Wales.

However, witnesses had told the committee that the agency was seen as “the voice of the Government against the profession” and looked for the “slightest slip” to deny applications for legal aid.

The MPs called for “fundamental changes” to the legal aid system, which needed to be made “more flexible” to ensure that there is a “consistent pipeline of legal aid lawyers” to help the most vulnerable.

Earlier in the year, a report by the House of Lords Constitution Committee had urged the government to increase the legal aid budget, which had seen a “radical reduction” by almost 40% in under a decade.

The report said this had “exacerbated barriers for accessing legal representation” and recommended that the government increases the legal aid budget to “meet the new challenges for access to justice that have arisen during the pandemic.”

That report also warned that the funding cuts to courts and tribunals had led to a backlog of court cases in England and Wales that had reached “crisis levels.”

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
×