Authors:LAG
Created:2013-03-01
Last updated:2023-09-18
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Conference calls for campaign against legal aid cuts
Delegates at last month’s ‘Free legal advice in crisis’ conference discussed their concerns about the advice sector cuts and welfare benefit reform, and were urged to share their ideas and experiences about how to campaign for future legal advice services. Jean Betteridge of Access to Advice, the Manchester-based campaign that organised the event, commented: ‘There is huge resistance to these massive cuts in advice services, at a time when the bedroom tax starts and many essential benefits will be cut or removed. We want people to be aware of the great difficulties ahead for them if they are affected by these cuts and to speak out against them.’
One conference speaker, Julie Bishop, director of the Law Centres Network, argued that any campaign to increase funding and other support for advice services had to have ‘emotional triggers’ and its aims had to be defined clearly. Commenting on the £65m Advice Services Transition Fund created by the Cabinet Office and the Big Lottery Fund, she was critical of the not-for-profit advice sector’s internal squabbles over which organisations should benefit from the transition fund. She believed that these quarrels contributed to the Cabinet Office’s decision to put emphasis on the grant criteria – in a bid to force advice groups to work together – rather than on the need to provide direct services to clients.
Steve Hynes, LAG’s director, pointed to the importance of organisations such as the National Federation of Women’s Institutes participating in the now defunct Justice for All campaign: ‘We have to reach out beyond our natural constituency. This cannot be a lawyer-led campaign. There has to be a grassroots involvement in it.’
Lord Bach, a former legal aid minister and until last year Opposition Spokesperson for Justice, told the conference he believed that the changes to legal aid were ‘wicked and a huge wrong’ and would hit the poorest and most marginalised communities hardest. Lord Bach said that he wanted to see funding ‘restored in a durable system for social welfare law’, and urged conference delegates to fight back against the changes introduced by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, while remaining united.
Yvonne Fovargue, a local MP and chairperson of the All-Party Group on Legal Aid was another conference speaker (see also page 5 of this issue). She argued that money needs to be found for social welfare law from government departments such as the Department for Work and Pensions, which creates much of the demand for advice.
■ To contact Access to Advice, e-mail: accesstoadvice2013@gmail.com. For further information about the campaign, visit: http://gmwrag.wordpress.com/access-2-advice/.