Access to justice

Christina Rees, Labour MP for Neath, writes in her latest blog:

I was honored* to have been involved in the Bach Commission on access to justice, and am looking forward to the launch of the interim report later this month. The Tories have led a vicious attack on legal aid, leaving many people without support or representation. As the country’s most senior judge, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, said earlier this year “our system of justice has become unaffordable to most”. We must not allow this nasty Tory Government to get away with these raids on working class people, and hold them to account on their failures with the justice system. In addition, we must be proactive, and I am eager to work with a range of partners to develop a set of policies that see justice as a vital public service, accessible in the same way as health or education.

Well, good luck with that. The Blair-Brown governments of 1997-2010 led the way on cutting legal aid, as this history shows, and previous Labour spokesmen have shown no willingness to restore even the Conservatives' cuts.

*sic. Ms Rees should be wary of American-English spell-checkers.