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What if Legal Aid was as protected and beloved as the National Health Service (NHS)? What if the funding cuts to Legal Aid which took place in the early 2010s after the financial crisis hadn’t happened? What if the new Hillsborough Law, which will come into force under soon-to-be prime minister Andy Burnham, really does introduce the biggest expansion of Legal Aid in a decade?
If the answer to any of these questions were “yes”, then, perhaps, Salma wouldn’t be sitting with a volunteer solicitor on a Sunday morning trying to avoid going to court.
Coming up in this week’s newsletter:
An exclusive interview with Sarah Sackman KC – why the minister of state for courts and legal services is running free legal advice clinics in her own constituency… Have cuts to Legal Aid been bad for democracy? Does the Hillsborough Law, which Andy Burnham is expected to champion as PM, present an opportunity to make sure people who need to exercise their new workers’ and renters’ rights will be able to access legal support?Salma (not her real name) has a very serious housing problem with a rogue letting agent who, it appears, has not only scammed her but also committed fraud in her name. Until it is resolved, Salma is on the hook for hundreds of pounds in council tax for a property that she has never set foot in.
This, shockingly, is because the rogue letting agent in question appears to have falsified a tenancy agreement in Salma’s name and told the council she lives in this home she has never even seen.
Salma tells me, and a solicitor, of her ordeal on a warm July Sunday morning at Artsdepot in North Finchley, a performing arts centre with a spacious and light public cafe.
You wouldn’t know it due to the unassuming set-up, but we are at the pop-up Finchley and Golders Green Free Legal Advice Centre, which has been established by local MP Sarah Sackman, who not only represents Finchley and Golders Green but also happens to be the minister responsible for courts and Legal Aid at the Ministry of Justice.
Salma has a good job in the public sector; as a result, she earns just above the threshold to qualify for Legal Aid.
To qualify for civil legal aid in England and Wales, your combined gross monthly household income must be £2,657 or less, and your disposable monthly income cannot exceed £733.
In any case, Sackman tells me that even if Salma did qualify, she might struggle to access support.
Barnet Free Legal Advice Centre closed in the early 2010s, due to funding cuts which affected legal support services in the area. Barnet, like so many places around the country, now has no permanent legal advice centre, with Trinity Legal Advice Clinic operating on a part-time basis in Hendon, offering support with employment, immigration and family matters. Beyond this clinic’s capacity and specialisations, residents in Finchley and Golders Green must travel to Mary Ward Legal Centre in Holborn (9 miles away) to access support.
Vicky Spratt speaks to Rachel Roberts, a volunteer solicitor at the free Legal Aid clinic in North Finchley (Photo: Vicky Spratt/The i Paper)Such gaps in Legal Aid in any given area have been called “Legal Aid deserts” by the Law Society, who have repeatedly warned that people are struggling to get legal advice when they needed, causing civil cases which could be mediated to end up in county courts.
As I have reported from both Croydon County and Bradford County Court, ordinary people who end up in desperate situations – such as mortgage arrears, a private rental eviction or a dispute with their employer – often can’t afford a solicitor and turn up to their local civil court, where waiting lists are spiralling, afraid and uninformed.
Judges, clerks and duty solicitors do their best to help but, truthfully, if Legal Aid was still readily accessible, it’s possible that many of these people would resolve their issues before getting to court. This would reduce the emotional burden on them, as individuals, and the logistical burden on civil courts, where wait times are falling but still currently as long as six months.
Sackman, who became a barrister in 2008, volunteered at Toynbee Hall’s free legal advice centre in east London as a young lawyer. She worked on housing cases and, when she became an MP in 2024, she saw what she calls “a glaring gap” in local provision.
The Labour Government has introduced landmark legislation that will give people more enforceable rights, which may require legal advice and tribunals: the Workers’ Rights Act and the Renters’ Rights Act.
This, combined with what Sackman was seeing on the ground in her constituency, prompted the MP to create a “small pool” of volunteer solicitors with expertise in family, employment, insurance, consumer, criminal, personal injury, planning, and housing. She then registered the Legal Advice Centre she had formed with LawWorks, the Solicitors Pro Bono Group, which meant they were covered by Professional Indemnity Insurance, and set off on a journey to provide “proof of concept” for what was possible if legal advice was more accessible at a local level.
“Access to justice is a form of empowerment,” Sackman told me over coffee while one of her volunteer solicitors sat with a woman who had just fled an abusive relationship on a nearby table. “Knowing your rights, understanding them, and being able to enforce them is what makes those rights real.”
However, unless you can afford a solicitor or qualify for access to Legal Aid, Sackman knows from her own professional experience that “whether you are bargaining with your employer, trying to leave an abusive relationship, whether you’re a small business trying to claw back a debt that’s owed to you, or challenging an unscrupulous landlord”, it can often feel like those rights are unenforceable.
“As a government, we have been ambitious about extending workers’ rights and renters’ rights – as we should be – but access to justice is crucial.”
The Finchley and Golders Green Free Legal Advice Centre now operates once a month, but Sackman’s team explain that they have been contacted by hundreds of people and could run it far more regularly.
“It’s important that we’ve taken our free legal advice out into the community,” Sackman says. “This is where people are living their lives. It is not like a law firm model where people would have to come to us…we’re going to them. Too often, people don’t know that the problem they have is a legal one or where to find advice.”
The NHS was launched in July 1948. State-funded legal aid was established shortly after, introduced via the Legal Aid and Advice Act of 1949. The goal was to provide “the same level of legal support for the poor” as the NHS did for public health, ensuring that no one was financially unable to prosecute or defend their legal rights.
Sadly, over time, Legal Aid has been eroded and not upheld as a cornerstone of the accessible state in the same way that the NHS is now regarded.
Sackman says that “cutting Legal Aid and cutting access to early legal support is a false economy”.
“Having access to early legal help, advice, and advocacy prevents much higher costs down the line,” she adds.
Sackman returns to a woman she helped at the Legal Aid clinic in east London early on in her career. She managed to help prevent her from being evicted from her home, therefore sparing her unnecessary trauma, a court date and, in the end, her local council from the costs and administration that would have been associated with helping her had she become homeless.
For this minister, that is how the system should function and why Legal Aid is so vital.
“I want us to have a much deeper, louder conversation about civil justice in our society,” Sackman adds. “Most people have rented at some point or other in their lives. Most people have interacted, paid for, even run their own small business. These are the sorts of cases that come before our county courts.”
“We need people to know their rights, to know the power they have. It’s not enough that we simply pass laws and post on social media about it.”
Before I leave, I speak to Sackman’s volunteer solicitor. Rachel Roberts is an expert in family law with decades of experience. Perhaps she puts it best: “I am a big fan of meditation. I see my role as helping people to understand their rights and avoid court. This is not about encouraging more conflict; used correctly, the law helps to de-escalate and avoid court.”
Sackman has overseen a wide-ranging brief under Sir Keir Starmer. It has included reform of jury trials and criminal courts but, she says, county courts “which are described as the Cinderella of our justice system” are too often overlooked.
She hopes that this will change and that her Legal Aid model can provide some inspiration.
As the new prime minister, Burnham will preside over the implementation of the Hillsborough Law [AKA the Public Office (Accountability) Bill], which commits to providing legal aid for victims of disasters or state-related deaths.
This will be the biggest expansion of legal support since the post-2008 cuts. So, now is the time for a renewed focus on what Legal Aid can provide if ever there was one.
Housing crisis watch
In case you missed it, I have a new Big Read out about why Andy Burnham is about to inherit the “most dysfunctional” housing market in decades and what he might do about it. It also relays comments from anxious housing sector professionals in recent weeks who are desperately hoping that housing and planning minister Matthew Pennycook will either remain in post or be promoted under a Burnham government. You can read it here.
What I’ve been watching
Once again, I am afraid the answer is…the football! We’re also listening rather a lot of New Order in our house.
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