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No sign of Chalk moving on legal-aid fees

Britain’s justice secretary Alex Chalk (pictured) has told MPs that he wants legal-aid work to be seen as attractive, calling for a ”reset” on how the sector is perceived.

The Lord Chancellor told the select committee on justice that he wanted publicly funded work to be coveted by young people entering the legal profession, after years of being derided in the media.

According to the Law Society Gazette of England and Wales, Chalk did not make any fresh funding commitments, and did not suggest that the British Government would cave in to the Law Society of England and Wales in its fight to have criminal legal-aid fees increased by the minimum 15%, as recommended in a review of the issue.

Making his first appearance before the committee since taking office in April, Chalk was effusive in his praise for legal-aid lawyers and the work they did, stressing that the pipeline of people in this group needed to increase.

Demands

Chalk pointed out that his government was planning to put Stg £144 million into the legal-aid sector, but the Gazette says that divisions remain over the Law Society’s ongoing threat of legal action over fees.

The justice secretary said that he would meet the society this week, but did not appear to be willing to accede to its demands.

Instead, he pointed out that the British Government had already made an offer to increase spending to a sustainable level for future years.

“Those things are being put in in good faith, and I hope respectfully it doesn’t need to proceed to litigation,” added Chalk.