01/10/2026
Labour conference: No more money for legal aid, admits minister:
The demise of legal aid was clear to see in 2013 when the LSC was disbanded and the LAA set up under the MoJ.
Performance targets changed overnight from 1 million acts of civil assistance and ensuring all regions had sufficient service provision, to LAA Contract Manger being performance managed on recouping monies from legal aid providers, giving Contract Notices and Terminating contracts .
Long gone is the premise of working in partnership and having sufficient resource to regularly meet the sector and share direction, answer questions. provide guidance & training.
The last 30 years has seen minuscule increase in fees. Legal aid is no longer a system we can be proud of. Other countries no longer visit London to see how proper legal aid provision is provided. The decimation of legal aid has been so hard to witness. Work now out of scope, embarrassingly low rates, no increase to means resulting in fewer people qualifying for support, providers targeted with harder more challenging audits, more bureaucracy, more admin, more red tape. One rule for providers and no rules for them. It is amazing that legal aid still has the number of firms willing to provide legal help work often for free at such a high risk.
No change for the next three years then, apart from the continuation of dwindling legal aid providers, fewer vulnerable people qualifying for legal aid, increased advice deserts, and more pro bono work given by an aging solicitor group just hanging on for their dying breath. Legal aid will naturally disappear unless intervention is made to stop the flat line very soon.
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