The government is pressing ahead with plans to cut £350m from the more than £2bn annual legal aid bill, despite lawyers’ and campaigners’ opposition. A record response of over 5,000 consultation submissions, universally unfavourable, has produced no U-turn. Under the plans, some 600,000 cases of legal aid in England and Wales will no longer be funded if the full package goes through Parliament. Read the full story

Liberal Democrat MP Dr Julian Huppert secured a debate on legal aid in the Commons last week. He said it was timely because although the Government consultation, which has received around 5,000 replies, has closed no response has been published. Read the full story

Criminal firms have seen the introduction of fixed fee schemes for police work and a standard fee system in magistrates courts following a review of legal services by Lord Carter three years ago. Now the consultations on proposals for competitive tendering by criminal defence work firms have come to an end, Read the full story