One of the many malign effects of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act (LASPO) was to put paid to the Citizen Advice Bureaux and other legal advice sources. The Act swept away entitlement to state-funded legal advice in family, employment, housing and welfare benefits, clinical negligence, immigration, education and other common civil legal cases.

As a direct result the family courts system is at breaking point due to delays caused by unrepresented litigants and overstretched judges. There has been a surge in the number of “litigants in person” – those who do not have lawyers to argue on their behalf. As many as 650,000 people have been deprived of support by changes to legal aid. Read the full story