Criminal lawyers will receive a 15 percent increase in fees from the end of September, the government has announced, just days after they closed the courts by calling a strike.
The increase will mean a typical criminal lawyer will receive an extra £7,000 a year, the Ministry of Justice said.
But the Criminal Bar Association said further walkouts would go ahead as planned in the coming weeks as the offer did not meet their demands for improved pay, but simply brought forward the mechanism for a previously announced fee improvement.
Criminal lawyers will also receive a 15 per cent rise for their work in police stations and magistrates and juvenile courts, with further multimillion-dollar reforms to lawyers’ pay still under consideration.
CBA members walked out earlier this week, many joining columns outside the Old Bailey and other courts in wigs and black dresses, in a row over legal aid fees to represent defendants who cannot afford to pay the costs alone. There was the threat of further strikes in the coming weeks.
A CBA spokesperson told The Independent: “Today’s announcement is unfortunately nothing new as the Ministry of Justice has always made it clear that the new payment scheme will only come into force this autumn and will only be locked in in new instructions since then.
“This will not be retrospective and therefore the record backlog of over 58,000 cases will still be paid at the old rates for the years it will take to complete them.”
Because of the long delay in cases going to court, it will be years before lawyers receive fees at the new rates, he said.
CBA chairman Joe Sidhu QC said: “The statement doesn’t tell us anything new and importantly it doesn’t change the general time frame when solicitors can expect to see the new 15 per cent benefit for criminal solicitors.”
The CBA said there was no change to plans for industrial action over the next four weeks, escalating from a two-day walkout in the first week to a full walkout from Monday to Friday in the week commencing July 18.
Justice Secretary James Cartledge said: “Our vigorous efforts to tackle the backlog in the courts are working, but strike action by criminal lawyers threatens all this progress, despite a very generous pay offer on the table.
“The typical criminal lawyer will earn an extra £7,000 a year from September, so I am calling on the Criminal Lawyers Association to accept this proposal to stop victims waiting longer for justice.”
The chairman of the Bar Council, Mark Fenholz QC, said criminal lawyers felt “mistreated, undervalued and overworked” after a decade of chronic underfunding of the justice system.
“Today’s announcement of a 15 percent fee increase is not enough to reverse the cuts of the past decade, but it is a welcome first step in the right direction,” he said. “There is still much work to be done to repair the damage and begin to restore confidence in the legal profession.”
A Downing Street spokesman said any further industrial action would be “disappointing and regrettable”.
The spokesman said: “Strike action will force victims to wait longer for justice, especially as we work to clear the backlog of cases from the pandemic and we have seen them reduce.
“We encourage them to agree to the proposed 15 percent wage increase.”
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