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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Criminal barristers across England and Wales will refuse to attend court for half a day tomorrow. They’re going on strike in effect in protest at government cuts of up to 30% in income from Legal Aid. I’m joined now by the former Director of Public Prosecutions, now a Lib Dem peer, Lord McDonald. A very good morning to you Lord McDonald, you think they are not wrong to do this, why so?

LORD McDONALD: Well it is very unusual, more than unusual, it is the first time it has ever happened. Legal Aid has been cut 8% last year and 20% since 2010. Barrister’s incomes have declined 40% on Legal Aid since 1997 and on top of that now 30% cuts and I think that’s unsustainable. Everyone agreed that the Legal Aid budget had to be brought under control but what we don’t want is a second class service for people who don’t have money and rely on Legal Aid and a first class service for people who have money and can pay for their lawyers, an American system which we sought to avoid in this country but which I think we may be moving into if we’re not very careful.

DM: Because we’ve been talking about perceptions and reality on this programme already this morning when it comes to immigration, there is a perception and reality problem here then I suspect you’d say about barristers because the high profile barristers, people think they are on a gravy train, they earn hundreds of thousands of pounds every year but that’s not the reality is it?

LORD McDONALD: Well the so-called fat cats generally are barristers who charge private fees and they charge what the market will bear and why shouldn’t they? It’s a private market but the Legal Aid barristers aren’t in that category. The government’s own figures show that after expenses and VAT and so on, they are earning on average about £35, 36,000 a year so these are not fat cats, these are people who are working extremely hard for low incomes and 30% cuts on top of that, in circumstances where the Legal Aid budget was under-spent by £56 million last year, seems unreasonable and I fear that the Secretary of State, Mr Grayling, is in danger of destroying something that he doesn’t fully understand which is a criminal justice system which is as good as any in the world, which is fair and which supports people who don’t have money as well as people who do.

DM: You say he doesn’t understand it, is that because of his lack of legal background?

LORD McDONALD: Well I don’t know. We have two new Justice Ministers, Lord Faulks is a Conservative and Simon Hughes, a Liberal Democrat, who are on record as expressing strong concern about these cuts and I hope there is a serious conversation inside the Ministry of Justice now about whether these cuts are proportionate and the damage that they are likely to do to our criminal justice system.

DM: Do you think it will become more than a strong conversation and a bit of a row? Presumably you have talked to Simon Hughes about it who has moved in there.

LORD McDONALD: I haven’t spoken to him but I’ve seen what he said in the Commons and I’ve seen what Lord Faulks said in the Lords, Lord Faulks said that the criminal Legal Aid budget has already been cut to the bone, so these cuts presumably of 30% in his view would be cutting into the bone and I think that speaks for itself.

DM: Just tell us why, it sounds a simple question but why within the legal system barristers are so important in the British legal system?

LORD McDONALD: In the British system we have developed a system of justice where independent advocates represent both the prosecution and the defence and that introduces an element of expertise and objectivity into the system and it is really the glory of our system. Of course the great problem with these cuts is that they will in time be reflected on the prosecution side as well so it is not just defendants who are going to be struggling to find barristers who are competent to defend them, in serious cases – and that could be you or me, our children and our friends but also victims of crime are going to find their cases prosecuted by barristers who are being paid so little that it is difficult to attract people of ability to do that work. We don’t want the criminal justice system to be a second class part of our overall justice system.

DM: And just on the issue of fat cats, okay we understand they are not fat cats but are they really on the breadline or is it perhaps just not as well paid as people think it is?

LORD McDONALD: Well I think just to consider the reality of what is happening tomorrow, that up and down the country barristers are going to decline to attend court in the morning. That is a pretty dramatic development, these are not left-wing rebels, these are not natural rebels, these are people with families, with mortgages who have never done this before. I think it is a fair assumption they have been driven to it.

DM: And what happens, I mean we’ve seen demonstrations, we’ve seen public sector workers on the streets, not really much happens, not much government response. Where after that?

LORD McDONALD: Well the problem for the government is that if barristers decline to go to court, the justice system grinds to a halt so these people actually have some power when they make these sorts of decisions and I think the government may not yet have fully understood the degree of concern, anger and indeed fear at the criminal bar and I hope that Lord Faulks and Simon Hughes will try and bring that home to Mr Grayling.

DM: Okay, Lord McDonald, thank you very much indeed for your time, very good to see you.