12 October 2007
A statement from the Legal Aid Minister
In response to a press release issued by JUSTICE, the law reform and human rights organisation, the Legal Aid Minister, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath OBE, has made the following statement:
"I would like to reassure Roger Smith, JUSTICE's director that the £193 million savings are not additional cuts to the legal aid budget. The figure of £193m saved in the Spending Review is against the expenditure levels forecast if we had not introduced the current programme of legal aid reform."