Legal aid: Criminal case cuts planned
The justice secretary has said he will consult on his planned changes to legal aid
Plans to make further savings to the £2bn bill for legal aid in England and Wales have been announced by Justice Secretary Chris Grayling.
A consultation on plans to cut costs in criminal cases - including for competitive tendering by law firms - will start in April.
Tendering could begin in the autumn.
It follows a warning from Supreme Court President Lord Neuberger that legal aid cuts already going ahead in civil cases may restrict access to justice.
Savings of up to £350m have already been earmarked by removing legal aid for a range of civil cases including those involving social welfare debt, employment, family problems, clinical negligence, divorce and housing problems.
But Mr Grayling said in a statement: "Criminal defence represents by far the largest element of our remaining legal aid spend, where we are still spending over £1bn a year."
He added: "We are working to improve the efficiency of the criminal justice system as a whole, to move towards swifter resolution of cases before the courts.
"We also need to look again at ensuring that defendants who can afford to contribute to their legal costs do so and that the legal aid system commands the confidence of the public."
He said some money could be saved through efficiencies and speeding up the court process.
Mr Grayling said that, while the government had announced - in December - its intention to consult in late 2013 on introducing price competition in the criminal legal aid market, "we have decided to accelerate that timetable".
Under the new timetable, the consultation paper - to include further "proposals to both improve the credibility of the legal aid scheme and reduce its cost to the taxpayer" - will be published in April, tendering for contracts would be opened in autumn 2013 and the first contracts would "go live" in autumn 2014.
Mr Grayling also announced new powers, to be introduced in July 2013, for a defendant's car to be seized and sold if convicted to help recoup their legal costs.
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