It's time we laid down the law

One of the many issues hardly discussed by the main political parties during this dismal election campaign is legal aid.

Both the Tories and Labour promise "savings" or a "review" of provision, while the Liberal Democrats don't mention it - but neither do they ring-fence it against their proposed public spending cuts.

Why does legal aid matter at a time of public spending cuts? Because it was set up by the 1945 Labour government as part of its commitment to establishing a welfare state.

The Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers, trade unions and other bodies were involved in lobbying for a legal aid service to be set up and the outcome was the Legal Aid and Legal Advice Act of 1949.

Significantly the Rushcliffe Committee of the time - which recommended that legal aid should be available for all types of cases, be administered through the legal profession and available either free of cost or subject to a means-tested contribution - and the Labour government decided not to set up a national legal service along the lines of the NHS.

It bowed to the lobbying of the legal establishment, so that legal aid could be claimed by lawyers in private practice if the client was financially eligible and in the early days legal aid was generally claimed for criminal and divorce cases.

But in the 1970s there was a significant expansion of legal aid as young radical lawyers set up law centres and specialist legal aid solicitors' firms.

They started to practise in new areas of rights-based law such as social security, housing rights, immigration, and employment law and the scope of legal aid expanded to those areas.

Committed to working for clients who were entitled to legal aid, rather than fitting in legally aided clients with their richer private clients, they did not see their work as philanthropic but as part of the broader class struggle.

By 1979 nearly three-quarters of the population were financially eligible for legal aid.

This meant they could obtain legal advice and representation on payment of a means-tested contribution and not have to worry about lawyers' bills escalating out of control.

But in the 20-plus years I have been practising in legal aid, its availability has diminished.

In 1997, over 50 per cent of the population were still financially eligible. Today it is 29 per cent.

The greatest assault has come in the last few years, with pay rates for legal aid practitioners frozen.

Specialist legal aid solicitors have never earned large amounts of money and now several leading solicitors' firms have said they cannot afford to continue this kind of work and they are either closing or turning to privately paid work.

The principle that legal aid could be claimed by any solicitors' firm has been replaced by contracting and it is no longer possible for someone to choose his or her solicitor and have the case funded by legal aid.

Instead different solicitors' firms, advice agencies and even private companies such as Capita are funded to provide regional legal aid services.

The problem remains that as specialist legal aid solicitors' firms close down, there are now huge areas in the country without any such resources.

The large providers, even with the benefits of new technology, can't replace them.

Cuts have been disguised in various forms of restructuring practical arrangements.

These are unbelievably complicated and so the fact that each proposal involves a cut is easy to hide.

The decision not to take on the vested interests of the legal establishment in 1945 has been a godsend for governments.

Were there a national legal service, lawyers would be salaried public servants.

Just as NHS patients know that their services suffer if the health service is cut back, if the same applied to a national legal service its clients would be up in arms.

Legal aid costs £2.1 billion annually - 0.04 per cent of the budget - and we are constantly told that this is too much.

Morning Star readers will take no convincing that better public services could be funded by a withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and the decommissioning of Trident.

But even setting that aside, legal aid is cheap at the price.

It would be unthinkable for there to be no legal aid available for defendants facing criminal proceedings.

Where someone's liberty or reputation is at stake they should be entitled to legal representation without worrying about how to pay.

Those who are convicted are usually ordered to repay their legal costs, if they can afford it, but most defendants who appear in court simply cannot afford any sort of repayment. Rich defendants who receive criminal legal aid are rare.

It would be equally unthinkable today for parents not to receive legal aid if their child is being taken into care. Most parents defending child-care proceedings simply cannot afford to pay for lawyers.

Serious social costs will be incurred if legal aid were to collapse.

Courts have already noticed an increase in people conducting their own cases and cases where litigants are personally involved take considerably longer and cost the public more.

But cases funded by legal aid can establish important bench-marks - a test-case may be expensive but the result can benefit a large number of people and prevent individuals from having to bring their own claims.

Whichever mainstream party wins the general election, we have a fight on our hands to defend public services.

The NHS, education and welfare benefits are all under threat.

As workers, trade unionists and political activists defending the welfare state, let's not forget that legal aid is a crucial part of it - even the inadequate and patchy service which struggles to survive today.

Liz Davies is a barrister, political activist and chairwoman of the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers" >www.haldane.org. Further information can be found at Save Legal Aid and Young Legal Aid Lawyers.