Chris Grayling: criminals should be made to pay their legal costs
Justice secretary says convicted criminals may have to pay their own legal defence costs, as part of cuts to legal aid
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Chris Grayling believes criminal punishment should include bearing more of the cost imposed on society. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA
Convicted criminals should be made to pay for their own legal defence costs, the justice secretary, Chris Grayling, will announce on Tuesday.
Under plans to make further savings to the Ministry of Justice's massivelegal aid bill, those found guilty may have the court's expenses deducted from their future earnings.
Offenders can already be ordered to make compensation payments to victims, victims' services, the courts, or other government agencies - for example the Crown Prosecution Service. There is, however, currently no power to make them pay directly towards the running cost of the court.
More details of how the coalition government plans to make additional savings to legal aid are due to be announced in a consultation document published on Tuesday. Criminal legal aid at present costs the government £1bn a year. Around 1.23m defendants were sentenced at all courts in the 12 months ending September 2012.
Grayling said: "Why should the law-abiding, hard-working majority pay for a court service for the minority who break the law?
"Those who live outside the law should pay the consequences both through being punished and bearing more of the costs they impose on society. That is why we are exploring ways to make criminals pay towards the cost of their prosecution to the court."
The consultation will propose measures that the MoJ says are aimed at ensuring "the best value for taxpayers' hard-earned money and tackling instances where people have been taking the system – and those who pay for it – for a ride".
Among other schemes the Ministry of Justice has been considering is introducing competitive tendering for contracts to carry out criminal legal aid work in courts. Lawyers fear such a change would severely reduce the quality of representation in British courts, removing "the centuries-old right for a defendant to choose his or her own solicitor".
At the weekend, the government confirmed that foreign migrants will have to live in Britain for a year before they can claim civil legal aid as part of reforms to save £300m a year.
Grayling told The Sunday Telegraph: "There are a number of areas where somebody who comes to this country even on a tourist visa can access civil legal aid. We are going to change that.
"There have been examples of people who have come to the country for extraordinarily short periods of time who have had a relationship breakdown and then they end up in our courts at our expense to determine custody of the children.
"This will exclude people who enter the country illegally, who up to now have been able to access our legal aid system in a way I don't think should ever have happened."
The consultation is also likely consider preventing prisoners using legal aid for cases that do not relate to the length of their sentences, according to the newspaper.
"I am proposing to take legal aid away from prisoners who don't like the prison they are in, or don't like the cell they are in, or don't like a part of the regime," Mr Grayling told The Sunday Telegraph.
