Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 03 November 2021
I thank the minister for advance sight of her statement and for agreeing to give a statement today. The Scottish Labour Party supports the campaign by criminal defence lawyers for an improvement in the criminal legal aid rates, which have faced real-term cuts over many years. The minister will be aware of the anger in the profession.
The Criminal Justice Committee has been hearing evidence about the crisis in the criminal defence sector, with more experienced criminal defence agents moving to other parts of the profession at a time of a huge increase in the number of criminal cases because of the backlog created by the pandemic.
There are more than 25 per cent fewer firms registered for criminal legal aid now than there were 10 years ago. During the pandemic, a further 10 per cent fewer firms claimed legal aid fees, although I appreciate what the minister has said about the unusual circumstances, and that that decrease might be partly because of cases not proceeding. However, the minister will be aware that there has been a cut of almost £0.5 billion in the legal aid budget since 2007. Although she is correct to say that there have been some recent announcements of increases, they do not in any way compensate.
Does the minister accept that we need to recruit more lawyers to do criminal legal aid work, given the thousands of outstanding trials? Will she come forward with a plan that recognises that we need immediate long-term increases in the payments for some types of criminal legal aid case?