The leader of criminal barristers on strike in England and Wales has urged Liz Truss’s lord chancellor to hold urgent talks to resolve the dispute over legal aid fees.
The Criminal Bar Association (CBA) has been angered by the refusal of Dominic Raab, who announced he was leaving the justice secretary post on Tuesday, to meet them since industrial action began in April. Its chair, Kirsty Brimelow, said it should be the immediate priority of his successor.
Barristers began their first indefinite all-out strike on Monday over demands for an immediate 25% increase in legal aid fees, after a fall in their real earnings of 28% since 2006.
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has offered 15% but it will apply only to new cases and, given a backlog of about 60,000 cases, Brimelow said it could be up to four years before CBA members see its fruits.
Addressing striking barristers in front of the supreme court in central London on Tuesday, Brimelow, who took over as CBA chair on Thursday, said the dispute could be settled in a couple of days if the government showed goodwill.
She said striking barristers shared the MoJ’s vision of a world-class criminal justice system, but added: “That vision cannot be realised without immediate investment into the people who actually are keeping the criminal justice going and not only keeping it going but delivering the high standards that we need in order to function as a civilised society and to function as a liberal democracy.
“So we urge the new secretary of state and lord chancellor to meet us tomorrow and to open negotiations to resolve the crisis, which has not been of barristers’ making.”
Later on Tuesday, appearing before MPs on the justice committee to discuss the strike, Brimelow was asked by the chair, Bob Neill, what engagement there had been with Raab.
She answered: “There’s been none,” adding: “There’s been no operative meetings in order to discuss, to drill down, to find points of commonality to reach some agreement. There’s been nothing and we’ve been pushing for those meetings because none of the barristers actually want to not be in court. They’re all suffering as well, I should say, because they’re self employed … many are making very significant sacrifices.”
At the gathering opposite parliament, one of several taking part outside courts around the country, barristers spoke passionately about how stress, low pay and uncertain hours were driving advocates out of criminal practice. They warned that without change, women, people of colour and working-class barristers in particular would forgo the profession.
Anisha Kiri, whose parents fled war-torn Sri Lanka and who was called to the bar in 2020, said: “I ask myself all the time: ‘Why am I working so hard for so little? When can I pay my family back? When will I be able to buy a house?’ I’m so tired. Every case where I calculate how little I get paid for the amount of work I put in pushes me closer to quitting – I cannot go on.”
At the committee meeting, Alejandra Llorente Tascon, co-chair at the CBA young bar subcommittee, said she was paid £12,000 in her first year, declaring £4,000 to £5,000 on her tax return after expenses. “The fees are now so low that most … junior barristers are struggling to pay the student debt, are struggling to move out of their family homes, are struggling to pay travel and their general expenses to practise at the criminal bar,” she said.
Llorente Tascon said one of the biggest problems was that preparation work – outside courts – was unpaid, in a job in which there was no work-life balance. She said she had heard of one barristers’ chambers where out of six pupils (student barristers) five “did not complete their pupilage because they could not afford to stay at the criminal bar”, adding: “The one pupil that stayed, stayed for three months and then realised that they couldn’t afford it so they left.”
The MoJ has called the strike “irresponsible” and said it would harm victims. It claims the 15% fee increase will add about £7,000 to a typical barrister’s annual earnings.
