Committee says proposed legal aid cuts may breach human rights

All-party committee tells justice secretary Chris Grayling that restrictions on legal aid would affect vulnerable groups

Justice secretary Chris Grayling. Barristers and solicitors are to strike next month in protests at legal aid cuts. Photograph: Sean Dempsey/PA

Chris Grayling is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing, the chair of an influential all-party backbench committee has suggested. Oscar Wilde's cynical jibe was twice put to the justice secretary when he gave evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights on 26 November and was then repeated by Dr Hywel Francis, a Labour MP, when he launched its report today.

The committee of MPs and peers examined three restrictions on legal aid that Grayling is in the process of introducing: removing civil legal aid for people who have not been resident in England and Wales for a year, limiting the scope of criminal legal aid for prisoners and refusing legal aid in cases assessed as having a "borderline" prospect of success.

"We are surprised that the government does not appear to accept that its proposals to reform legal aid engage the fundamental common law right of effective access to justice, including legal advice when necessary," the committee said. "We believe that there is a basic constitutional requirement that legal aid should be available to make access to court possible in relation to important and legally complex disputes, subject to means and merits tests and other proportionate limitations."

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