Post by nickd on Sept 11, 2011 11:11:26 GMT 1
Let them eat cake!
Many years ago so the story goes, back in the 17th century;- Marie - Antoinette the queen consort of Louis XVI, when told that the french peasants had no bread, told them all 'let them eat cake'.
The saying has since stuck and is often used when describing examples of what is seen to be kicking the poor. And so it was that legal aid lawyers protesting against Ken Clarke's savage legal aid cuts took to the green outside the magnificent palace of westminster after presenting the justice minister with a "Magna Carta cake" to remind him of the "obligations to protect the ancient document’s promises to the British people".
The Law Societies' 'Sound off for Justice' "Let Them Eat Cake!" party on College Green saw members of the public and MPs gather to cut up the cake to symbolise the "cutting of access to justice for large swathes of the British population".
The Law Society’s president, Linda Lee said: “Back in 1215 when the Magna Carta was signed, it was set out that ‘to no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice’.
"The principles set out by Ken Clarke and this Coalition Government are set to go back on all that we have fought for in this country and creates a two-tiered justice system, that favours the rich and leaves the vulnerable and needy with nowhere to turn, when they need it the most. Cameron’s Big Society will be the big loser, if he does not believe that the law is for all.”
Here they are outside the Houses of Parliament,
just before giving Justice Minister their specially
baked cake
I think we ought to have a little look at this very
special cake.....
Wow! it looks magnificent. I suppose it should do; - after all we're all too often reminded that the legal aid budget costs us all around £2.1 billion pounds a year; let's have a look at how much cake everyone gets shall we?
At a cost of £2.1 billion a year, I don't really think the legal aid budget is too bad given how much it covers in criminal and civil legal cost, although I do think some cash could be saved in 'very high cost cases'. At around £38 per person year it's a bit less than a year's AA or RAC membership and well under half the cost of a TV license; - all in all not bad for a bit of legal protection if ever you should need it. But okay, cuts need to be made, so let's just see how how our legal aid cake gets sliced up then...
This is by far the biggest chunk, at around
£1.2 billion, it's what's set aside for criminal legal aid...
And you know what? - it's almost untouched by legal aid reform, so you can set it aside and remember how it'll still cost you around £22 per year.
Which leaves around £0.9 billion for 'civil legal aid' - that's around £900 million a year; - this pays for family and certain other cases. Yes, it's a lot of money, but the bit I really want to see is how much of this remaining civil legal aid share goes to providing essential social welfare advice.
So let's have a look at the social welfare slice shall we? -
by which I mean the little slice which funds most CAB, law agencies and some solicitors in welfare benefits, employment and debt advice; - it also funds Shelter & some law firms to provide housing advice..
Oh, that's not much is it? It's around 5% of the overall legal aid budget if we include housing, welfare benefits, debt, employment and immigration which all works out at around £100 million to provide 553,521 separate 'acts of assistance' (using 2008/09 figures). Given that they say unemployment is currently running at around 2.5 million, it's only enough to give about a fifth of those on a low income a bit of help.
A lot of CABx only have contracts in welfare benefits & debt casework, this works out at around £53 million in paying for around 290,500 'acts of assistance'; - a fairly diminutive 2.5% of the overall legal aid budget.
Now I wonder how much of this will be left after Ken Clarke's legal aid reform, surely it will remain relatively unscathed in hard times like these?
Oh dear, it looks like all we get is literally crumbs!
The Legal Action Group predict cuts averaging 69% across this sector of social welfare from the already slim '5% slice' shown above. It leaves us with around £30 Million to go around all of the agencies, law centres. £30 million being about 1.5% of the overall £2.1 billion pound bill for legal aid, it really is crumbs by comparison!
When the Ministry of Justice talk of legal aid costing everyone £38 per year in legal aid, they omit to mention how the slicing up off the cake will only save the taxpayer £1.17 per year (or 2 pence a week) which could have been used for this vital part of legal aid. It's the part everyone says there is the strongest case for. Given what we do for our money I'd call that pretty illogical wouldn't you?