Responding to news that the UK Government has announced a review into legal aid cuts, Rachel Logan, Law and Human Rights Programme Director at Amnesty International UK, said:

“While we welcome this long-overdue review, we urge the Government to ensure it is thorough, transparent and focused on the mounting evidence of how the legal aid cuts have devastated access to justice and hit those most in need particularly hard.

 “As Amnesty’s research has repeatedly warned, the relentless cuts to legal aid have left thousands of society’s most vulnerable people without essential legal advice and support. That is neither fair nor sustainable.

“It is time for a detailed examination of what has gone wrong, and then the process to repair the system must begin.”