How accurate are Ken Clarke's figures on legal aid? | Owen Bowcott

Labour spokesman for Justice and Statistics

Bar Council challenge cited by the Department of Justice to justify legal aid project

Ken Clarke

fervent admiration for practices allegedly utopian state law are reduced to being subjected to a cold shower of skepticism.

economy, reason and justice, the lawyer suggested on several occasions, are the characteristics of the judicial system in New Zealand as evidenced by the fact that the country spends only £ 8 per year per capita on legal aid.

In libertine lawyer plagued Britain, Clarke told the House of Commons again this week, the holder of oppressed citizens held a world record £ 39 each to keep the heavy wheels of justice to inflection.

is a powerful change, but a spokesman for the now challenged by the labor courts, Andy Slaughter and the Bar Association, both the question of the accuracy of the figures of Kiwi.

New Zealand researchers have found, has increased from NZ $ 172 000 000 legal aid in 2009/10. (This figure appears in a series of press releases from the government). The World Bank population is 4.3 million.

basic results of the division from NZ $ 40 per capita. Translated to sterling equals about 20 pounds per person - significantly higher than 8 pounds repeatedly Clarke

The Department of Justice points out that a 2009 report was published, written by two academics from the University of New York, entitled "International Comparison of publicly funded services and legal systems of justice, "as the source of comparative figures -". the ambition to be a comparative study on a large scale, "even if the document warns that

The report is based on the evidence of the cost of legal assistance from a much earlier period (between 2003 and 2007) and notes that per capita spending on "legal services related to the" New Zealand stood at $ 21.86 in the U.S. in today's rate could be £ 13.65.

Clarke could find solace in the fact that the Minister of Justice in Wellington has expressed concern at a 55% increase in the costs of legal assistance for three years and marks the regime " unavailable ". The 2009 study from the Department of Justice also found that "almost all of the expenditure components (legal)" more was spent in England and Wales for the other countries studied.

But Andy Slaughter said:

"The government policy is based on wrong figures. To justify the destruction of our legal aid and civil justice system, which severely distorted the facts time and again, including the House of Commons and the public.

In fact, the cost of our justice system compares well with other jurisdictions. Rejection cuts in the using social million social right. will suffer as a result of this analysis are the poor in a department in chaos. "

Bar Association, attorneys representing any question the Department of Justice are. "The government continued to sell the myth about the cost of our legal aid system," said a spokesman.

"misleading statistics can not be used as a cover to introduce you to justice instead of access to justice by removing whole sections of the scope of legal aid.

"On a basis of equal footing, as Justice Select Committee met, our spending is the average across Europe. These cuts put us below the average. The government is based on 2004 figures for New Zealand and compares with 2009 figures. The actual cost of New Zealand is more than twice what the government proposes. "
Work

said the coalition is how the plot statistics and even refers to" doubtful cases. " Lord McNally, notes, sent a letter in March to correct the figures on the cost of legal fees for the NHS in 2008/9.

The Liberal Democrat peer apologized that "I mentioned that spend pounds 456m in legal fees is actually spent on NHS clinical negligence claims including total £ 312m in damages and interests, 104 million pounds in legal fees for applicants and 40 million pounds in its own legal costs. "

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