As Justice Secretary for seven and a half years and a legal aid lawyer for 20 years before that, the plight of legal aid grieves me.

Numbers practicing are shrinking and those doing so ageing. That trend ongoing when I departed the profession in 2000 has accelerated with the risk to the public, not just practitioners, frightening.

Of course, I’ve played my part in cuts, just as I enjoyed the benefits when working.

I recall going to a Law Society conference in my ministerial role after the financial crash in 2008.

Many were old acquaintances, and some even friends, having trained and worked with them for over two decades. But I required to tell them that there was just no money for an increase in legal aid rates.

Despite them making legitimate demands which I would heartily have endorsed a few years earlier.

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I recall detailing that I had just come from telling prison officers that the pay rise this year was zero, a similar message was going to the police when I met them, and it also applied to me and to not just my office staff but civil........

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