Why is the NHS ring-fenced but the justice system isn’t?

Earlier this week, Sadiq Khan MP ‘admitted Labour could not reinstate £600m of legal aid cuts imposed by the government’. These are cuts which continue to have a very real impact on our society. They’ve left parents unrepresented when family judges are considering the future care of their children. They have deterred workers who are racially or sexually discriminated against in the workplace from bringing actions in the employment tribunals and priced out those who have suffered loss from bringing claims in the civil courts. The cuts have also driven the best lawyers away from publicly-funded civil work into private practice, and they have dried up the recruitment of junior barristers. We now face a ticking time-bomb in our legal system: where are tomorrow’s skilled prosecutors and judges going to come from? We hear a great deal about the NHS. Access to free health care matters to us all.  But so does access to justice.