What Can The Result Of The 2024 Bellamy Report Offer The Crumbling System Of Criminal Legal Aid?

In 2021 Sir Christopher Bellamy KC’s independent report into criminal legal aid was published.

The report confirmed that the criminal justice system had been under funded for many years and that an immediate ‘lifeline’ of 15% funding uplift was needed to keep the struggling system running.

Further, long term proposals were also suggested.

The Conservative Justice Minister Dominic Raab chose to ignore the recommendation, despite it being independent and the commission being chaired by a Conservative Lord.

The government decision not to act was successfully judicially reviewed, but even then the suggested payment has not been forthcoming.

Future of Criminal Legal Aid system

As we approach the election on the 4th July, I thought it would be interesting to look at what – if any – proposals the main parties might have in their manifestos to help the struggling Criminal Legal Aid system, which is surely an absolute necessity in any civilised society

Conservative party manifesto

I turned first to the Conservative party manifesto, albeit with an air of pessimism, given their past record. Their manifesto sets out a commitment to ‘toughen up’ community sentencing, reviewing homicide sentencing, passing Martyn’s law –(measures required to be taken by venues to protect against terrorism following the Manchester Arena attack in 2017) – and building new prisons.

They have already passed new laws (Public Order Act 2023) to curb protesting and maintain they will continue in that vein- if given the opportunity.

Eventually, I found the commitment to match fund 100 criminal law pupillages. Whilst welcome, the term drop in the ocean comes to mind and there is not a mention of the overworked and underpaid criminal law solicitors or the recommendations of Sir Christopher Bellamy KC anywhere to be seen.

Onto the Labour Party manifesto…

There is much on neighbourhood policing, cracking down on antisocial behaviour, knife crime and violence against women and girls etc.

Finally there is an acceptance that the criminal justice system is broken, but simply a commitment to provide more prosecutors, a commitment to the protection of victims and a review of sentencing.

A statement that they are committed to rebuilding the criminal justice system includes not a mention of the criminal defence lawyers or Sir Christopher unfortunately.

Liberal Democrats manifesto

What about the Liberal Democrats? Can they offer any positive proposals?

They promise pay rises for and recruitment of further police officers and halving the time between conviction and sentence in criminal proceedings.

There is also mention of ‘developing a workforce strategy to ensure there are enough criminal barristers, judges and court staff’ – encouraging, but no mention of solicitors or of the report and its findings.

There also follows a worthy plan of steps to cut reoffending.

Moving onto the Green Party Manifesto…

There was a reassuring affirmation of the commitment to human rights and specifically the Human Rights Act. They also promise to scrap the Police, Crime Sentencing and Courts Act and the recent Public Order Act, both acts having been brought in by the Conservative government to curb public protest.

They state they will repair and renew our crumbling court system with a £2.5 billion investment, but there are no further details of the specifics and where exactly that money would go.

I turned with some trepidation to the Reform Party Manifesto….

There is a commitment to Zero Tolerance policing , mandatory life sentences for second strike violent offences – none specified – and an urgent sentencing review.

There is a vague reference to increase criminal justice budget and a commitment to increase its budget to £12 billion to ensure more high calibre staff and therefore cut delays. There is no reference to which (high calibre) staff it refers. (Probably not Criminal Defence Practitioners). They also commit to reopen local Magistrates Courts to cut backlog- this is presumably provided they haven’t already been sold off at a vast profit to housing developers.

There is a plan to set up high intensity training camps for youths (some of us remember Borstals) , build new detention places, commissioning disused military bases if needed and the commitment to whole life tariffs for those who endanger the public (there are only probably approximately 70 serving such tariffs at present).

Scottish Nationalist Manifesto

I didn’t look at the Scottish Nationalist Manifesto as of course it has a separate judicial system.

So this whistle stop tour of the main parties’ manifestos has shown there is not a mention of Sir Christopher Bellamy KC’s report. Let us hope they just forgot to mention it…

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