Westminster update: £92 million funding boost for criminal legal aid

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Criminal legal aid: £92million funding boost proposed by government

The government launched a welcome consultation to increase criminal legal aid fees for solicitors on Friday 9 May.

Lasting eight weeks, the consultation puts forward an increase of up to £92 million a year in additional funding for criminal legal aid solicitors working in police stations, courts and prisons.

We have welcomed the funding as a step in the right direction, but have highlighted that the cost of living crisis has outstripped the extra funding on offer.

We've argued that there is a real danger that legal representation will not be there for those who need it unless the government commits funding for the profession in the long term.

We look forward to continuing to engage closely with the government and responding to the consultation over the next eight weeks to ensure the criminal justice system gets the resources it needs.

India trade deal: missed opportunity for legal services

On 6 May, the prime minister announced that the long-awaited free trade agreement with India was across the line.

This successful trade deal with one of the world’s fastest growing economies will have a huge impact on goods, energy and digital services.

Trade minister Douglas Alexander addressed the Commons to give an update on the deal and offer parliamentarians the chance to scrutinise the outcome of months of negotiations.

He opened the debate by stressing that this Labour government has “brokered the most generous trade deal ever agreed by India in its history”.

He noted the importance of the FTA to the financial and professional services sector, stressing that this deal:

• locks in access to India’s fast-growing market
• will ensure that UK banks and finance companies are placed on an equal footing with Indian suppliers
• encourages the recognition of professional qualifications, so that UK and Indian firms can access the right talent at the right time

Despite this being a huge achievement for the government, we are disappointed that legal services are not included in the deal.

This is a missed opportunity for a significant breakthrough in terms of market access for lawyers in both India and the UK.

Legal services are an enabling sector, supporting other sectors in their own trade and investment decisions and operations.

It is also part of the high-growth sectors identified in the government’s industrial strategy.

As part of our ongoing engagement with the UK government and our Indian counterparts, we are calling for renewed support for legal services trade between the two countries.

Local Elections 2025: Reform UK rises as Labour and Conservatives fall

Thursday 1 May saw elections take place for local councils across England, a number of English mayoralties and a vacant seat in parliament.

The outcome was something of a political earthquake.

Reform UK made sweeping gains across the country as the two major parties both suffered dramatic downturns in their vote share.

The party won the Runcorn and Helsby by-election by a hair’s width margin of six votes from Labour – the smallest margin of victory in a post-war parliamentary by-election.

They were also the big winners of the local elections, taking 677 new council seats and control, for the first time, of 10 councils.

They also comfortably won the newly created Greater Lincolnshire mayoralty with former Conservative MP Andrea Jenkyns as their candidate, as well as the Hull & East Yorkshire mayoralty.

The Conservatives suffered a dramatic fall, losing 674 council seats and 16 councils.

There was one bright spot, however, as the party managed to win back control of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough mayoralty from Labour, despite polling a much smaller fraction of the vote than they recorded in 2021.

The elections were not a pleasant experience for the governing party either.

Despite starting from a very low base, Labour lost 187 councillors and control of one council, in addition to the defeat in Runcorn and Helsby.

Elsewhere the Liberal Democrats gave a strong performance, picking up 163 new councillors and three councils, while the Greens also made advances, adding 44 new council seats.

The results seem to herald a new era of volatility and multi-party politics, with genuine five-way contests in places like the West of England mayoralty.

Reform UK have seized control of the political narrative, leaving Labour and the Conservatives with serious questions to answer.

Coming up:

We are working closely with MPs and peers to influence a number of bills before parliament: