Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 03 November 2021
I thank the minister for sending her statement in advance. Sadly, the statement will go down like a bag of sick with Scotland’s criminal defence fraternity on listening to it. It pins the blame for the current dispute solely on defence lawyers and accepts no responsibility whatsoever for the clearly deteriorating relations between our legal sector and the Scottish National Party Government.
The incident at Edinburgh sheriff court this weekend prompted serious concerns. I am, of course, pleased that constructive talks have been held since then, but the incident called into question the fundamental right of the accused to confidential legal advice, with which the state, the police and the courts can never interfere.
Scotland’s solicitors are the vital cogs in our wheel of justice. They work with nothing but the highest level of professionalism and do not take disruptive action for no reason or for the fun of it. With a backlog of more than 50,000 court cases, on-going disputes over legal aid—chronically underfunded for many years—and recruitment problems in the sector, it is clear to everyone except the minister that Scotland faces an immediate crisis in its legal sector.
Why have only £2 million of the promised £9 million of the legal aid resilience fund actually been paid to firms, given that £9 million is exactly the sort of money that they need to survive?
After today’s attack on our hard-working solicitors, does the minister agree with the president of the Glasgow Bar Association, who said that
“defence practitioners are always an afterthought”
of the Government? I presume that she does not.