Labour must grasp the moment and defend our criminal justice system

Everywhere one looks, the country is crumbling after 12 years of Tory government. The ‘winter of discontent’ of 1978-1979 was a key moment in the shattering of a post-war consensus and the beginning of a Thatcherite revolution that fundamentally changed Britain forever. The Shakespearean phrase is very British in its understatement – in 2022-23, rather than discontent, the country faces a winter of rage.

People have had enough. The cost-of-living crisis looms largest amongst an array of problems facing the UK as the summer recess ends, but across our society and economy the problems mount. The NHS faces record A&E waiting times, even more worrying during the summer where demand on emergency services is usually less significant. The UK is set for the slowest growth of any G7 country next year – not a huge surprise considering it has recently withdrawn from the world’s biggest single market with no tariffs. In education, schools are facing a funding crisis, with per pupil spending set to be lower than in 2010, with budgets under strain from food, energy and wage bills.

Another area, and one which is fundamental to a functioning society, is also facing an emergency due to government mishandling – and is now finally getting the attention it deserves. This week, criminal barristers voted for an all-out strike for those representing legally aided defendants. Predictably, many have resorted to calling such barristers ‘fat-cat lawyers’ who are ‘holding the government to ransom’.

The reality is, of course, complex. It is important, and right, to say that many criminal barristers are lucky enough to earn huge amounts of money – well above the average salary. But the real issue is barristers who are starting their career who are currently unable to earn a living to survive, leading to a mass exodus from the junior criminal bar. A quarter of the criminal bar have quit in the last five years, which is no surprise considering real earnings are said to have decreased by 28% since 2010. In my chambers – where barristers practice across civil, family and crime – we have seen criminal barristers join with the intention of practising in other areas as they simply cannot afford to undertake criminal trials and pay the bills. Without a supply of criminal barristers, the system will continue to collapse.

Junior criminal barristers can earn around £12,500, a remarkably low salary considering practitioners are required to complete years of study that can easily lead to debts of over £50,000. It is not, however, just about money. The strike seeks a pay rise to better reflect the junior criminal bar’s work, but it is also a protest against a criminal justice system that has been dismantled by Tory cuts; police numbers have been cut by 21,000, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) budget reduced by a third and hundreds of courts sold off, leading to a backlog of 60,000 cases.

Tales are regularly told about practitioners travelling to far-flung crown court for four hours each way, only for the trial to be adjourned due to the case not being prepared appropriately by the cash-strapped CPS. Criminal barristers are fed up with spending their weekends preparing for a trial for it to fall apart at the 11th hour due to the unavailability of a judge, or the over listing of cases that week. They do not get paid for this work, and all of a sudden their diary is empty, meaning another week without any earnings. They have to explain to their client, once more, why they must wait another six months for their day in court, after years of delay. It is frustrating, difficult and not why anyone enters the legal profession.

To compound the matter, the courts themselves are quite literally crumbling; the lifts don’t work, toilets are out of service and the temperatures are nearly always extreme. For a young barrister to earn less than the minimum wage in these circumstances is simply not sustainable or realistic.

So, what is the government response? Dominic Raab, the Justice Secretary, has not negotiated with the criminal bar but instead, and somewhat inevitably, turned to the Daily Mail to state that barristers are holding justice to ransom.

The reality is that the Independent Review of Criminal Legal Aid, commissioned by the government in 2018, condemned the “years of neglect” by the government and stated that there was no “practicable alternative to properly funding, and reinvigorating, criminal legal aid”. As a “minimum necessary as the first step”, a 15% rise was recommended, to be implemented immediately. Yet the offer from the government of such a rise will not reach barristers until 2024 when, considering current and predicted rates of inflation, it may represent no rise in income at all.

Labour must make the case for defending the criminal justice system. It is understandable that lawyers asking for a pay rise is not the argument politicians want to adopt on the airwaves, but there is a wider point that pervades our government: the current crisis is a result of Tory mismanagement since 2010 and it is time for a fresh start. Labour’s response to the strike was a press release about energy costs at court which, whilst perhaps valid, does not truly meet the scale of the challenge.

Labour must grasp the moment. The focus is, of course, on energy bills and the cost-of-living crisis – but, across government, Labour must be emphasising that the situation needn’t have been this desperate but for Conservative mismanagement and ideological decision making, and explaining how its approach will be different. The country is desperate for change and Labour must be the change makers.