Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labour Party, has stated: “Legal aid has been referred to as the forgotten pillar of the welfare state. It is time to challenge that perception. The principles of access to justice and human rights for all is precisely for what Labour stands.” He has set up a Commission to review the disastrous chages to civil legal aid. See the No Mad Laws Website at:-
http://www.nomadlaws.co.uk/news/77-corbyn-calls-for-review-of-civil-legal-aid.
This important report commissioned by the National Inclusion Health Board of the Department of Health and written by the Traveller Movement and Bucks New University has just been published. It provides an important up to date position on this subject. Here are some useful extracts from the report:
Lord Bach, former Legal Aid Minister in the last Labour Government, has set up a Commission to look into Legal Aid on behalf of the Labour Party.
The Housing and Planning Bill which is going through Parliament includes provisions to vastly reduce security of tenure for council tenants. These provisions are discussed on the Nearly Legal Housing Law website at:-
http://nearlylegal.co.uk/2015/12/law-unintended-consequences-everyone-needs-housing-lawyer/
Plans to slash the number of law firms allowed to do criminal legal aid work at police stations and magistrates’ courts have been dropped, while an 8.75% cut to legal aid fees criminal lawyers earn has been suspended for a year.
In September 2013 the Lord Chancellor proposed bringing in a residence test with regard to the provision of Legal Aid. The proposal involved an amendment to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act (LASPOA) 2012 by means of a statutory instrument. Public Law Project (PLP) took a challenge to this proposal on the basis that it was outside the aims of LASPOA 2012 and that it was discriminatory. Before the High Court PLP were successful. The Lord Chancellor appealed to the Court of Appeal and the Court of Appeal allowed this appeal.
Appeals were taken to the Court of Appeal by A and also by SR, PR and W challenging the decisions to apply the bedroom tax in their cases with regard to extra bedrooms they had. A had suffered from very extreme domestic violence and was in what was known as a Sanctuary Scheme and had a safe room in her house. SR and PR were the grandparents of W who is a severely disabled child. They had an extra bedroom for carers who stayed overnight. The case centred on the fact that these two types of case did not come under the exceptions contained in Regulation B13 of the Housing Benefit Regulations 2006 and, thus, the appellants had part of their housing benefit removed because of the extra room.
This claim concerned a challenge brought by an Irish Traveller to a “local connection” requirement contained within North Somerset Council’s housing allocations scheme, which had been extended beyond Part VI Housing Act 1996 allocations to cover Gypsy/Traveller site allocations. The effect of that requirement was that the Claimant, who could not point to a local connection to North Somerset, was denied entry to the Council’s housing register.
The Government has done a u-turn and decided not to repeal the Human Rights Act. This is wonderful news for all those disadvantaged and underprivileged people who may need it as an essential ground in arguing their case. See:-
The Equality and Human Rights Commission have produced the report ‘Is Britain Fairer? The state of equality and human rights 2015’.