As the government's proposed 350m legal aid cuts return to be debated in the House of Lords, an independent report from one of Britain's leading universities has revealed how these changes will incur new costs for the taxpayer by simply shifting the burden on to other parts of the public purse, such as the NHS.
The King's College London (KCL) report Unintended Consequences: the cost of the Government's Legal Aid Reforms, shows that the cuts proposed in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill will give rise to unbudgeted costs of at least 139m, undermining lord chancellor Ken Clarke's contribution to the government's deficit reduction target.
Read the report