What Price Justice Campaign

05 Jun 2007

MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington gave her support today to the Law Society’s What Price Justice? campaign fighting to save legal aid for some of the most vulnerable members of society.

The campaign highlights the disastrous effects proposed changes to the legal aid system will have on thousands of vulnerable people in need of legal representation. Without proper funding the legal aid system will be unable to provide high-quality legal representation and may well result in spiralling costs in other areas, such as social work.

Diane Abbott MP has been campaigning within Parliament to call a halt to the cuts to legal aid:

“Like health care, legal aid is one of the essential pillars of the welfare state and something for which we can be very proud of in the UK. Access to legal representation is a fundamental right of anybody living in this country.

It is clear that at present the legal aid budget is high, and everybody can accept that the government must get value for money. However, the areas that will be most adversely affected by the cuts in legal aid are those that are not costing the government a lot of money, and they are also areas where the funding of legal representation is desperately needed.”

The What Price Justice? campaign is supported by the Child Poverty Action Group, Shelter, NSPCC, Mind, the Refugee Council, and the Citizens’ Advice Bureau among others, and is currently lobbying Ministers to change the legal aid proposals.

Ends

Editor’s notes:

 

1                   To join the Law Society campaign go to: www.whatpricejustice.lawsociety.org.uk



back ⇢