Naomi Long
East Belfast · Alliance Party · Northern Ireland
“Underneath the Facebook posts to say that he had passed away, people speculated with such comments as, "Probably high on drugs", "Probably drunk", and, "Typical boy racer". There was all of that speculation. It was hurtful to the family, and it was inaccurate.”
“There are circumstances that we need to consider and be careful of. I was told, for example, that, when the issue of good character references at trial was being looked at in New South Wales — Committee members may wish to look at this for themselves — one of the groups that opposed their removal was representative of domestic abuse victi…”
“It sets out the strategic direction adopted by the Department and key partners to tackle those appalling crimes and protect vulnerable victims of exploitation.”
“The provision seeks to provide protection, via legal advice and representation for complainants, against the use of non-relevant personal material and evidence of previous sexual history being used in the court process.”
“<BR /> <BR />On the wider issue of ensuring that a withdrawal of services never happens again, I think that most of us agree that, although everyone has the right to take industrial action, no one has the right to derail and hold to ransom the entire justice system in that way.”
“Those measures will go some way towards helping to support complainants and enable them to have input into the decision-making process about what records containing their personal and sensitive information are required to be shared with the defence.”
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“<BR /> <BR />In April 2025, a decision of the taxing master was taken to increase the solicitor hourly rate and counsel interlocutory fees by over 50% — not 15% but 50% — concerns were raised by the Bar and the Law Society about the removal of the taxing master from legal aid assessments, and there were calls from the Law Society to expedite taxation reform in relation to family and children order proceedings. We therefore decided to change our approach. <BR /> <BR />The Department then sought to expedite reform by seeking to change the system as follows: the Department will set by legislation the fees and rates and the arrangements that the taxing master will apply when assessing costs to be paid out of the legal aid fund.”
“<BR /> <BR />New frameworks will have to be developed, with legal aid fees and rates being set alongside the administrative processes that would allow the LSA to assess and process claims for payment. It is not unusual for Departments to set out their powers in primary legislation and then to make regulations; in fact, that is the only way in which it can be done. We cannot make the regulations without the regulation-making power. However, it is really important that people understand that we have the power; what we are trying to do is put it on a clearer footing.”
“<BR /> <BR />Back in December 2024, I announced the enabling access to justice reform programme, which included an upfront commitment to reform the taxation process to ensure greater accountability, transparency and budgetary control. My Department does not have endless financial resource, so I have to be able to control the money that is within my purview and ensure that it is properly used. Initially, we intended to deliver that reform in a phased manner by proceeding type, with High Court bail applications, judicial review, and criminal Court of Appeal proceedings to be reformed by the end of the current mandate, and to move forward on reforming other proceedings in future mandates.”
“To be clear, the taxing master is currently responsible for assessing the costs claimed by legal representatives in respect of civil proceedings in the High Court and civil and criminal proceedings in the Court of Appeal. I will come back to appeal courts, because it is important that people understand what we are talking about when it comes to brief fees. At the conclusion of an assessment, a certificate of taxation, which details costs payable by the paying party, is used and issued to the solicitor. Where the costs are to be met by legal aid, the certificate goes to the Legal Services Agency, and payments are made.”
“We are putting them in primary legislation to provide clarity on the role that would be taken by the Department, so I am surprised that it has received such a lukewarm reception.”
“I do not know because I was not party to all the data, and that is the point. However, we should be party to all the data. We should know how figures are arrived at. We should be able to scrutinise, challenge and question them because that is our job. We are here to represent the public, the people who pay their taxes and expect us to ensure that when money is spent, it is spent on the right thing, that it is fully accountable and transparent and that it provides value for money. <BR /> <BR />I did not think that the amendment would create such concern. It would place on a primary legislation footing powers that we already have in the Department, so it is not a major departure or a complex piece of work that is being rushed through. We have those powers.”
“As I pointed out, the legal aid fund has grown, some would argue exponentially and unsustainably, over recent years, so there is no comparison with what happened in England and Wales where the legal aid budget was slashed in 2014-15 because that is not what we have done. We are also not discussing how frequently we will review fees because we have already had a discussion with the Law Society and the Bar Council to do that every three years, and that is already in train. <BR /> <BR />Those are all things that have nothing to do with the amendment, which is about bringing a significant portion of expenditure — £30 million — back within the purview and scrutiny of the Assembly and my Department. It is not necessarily the case that it will be less. The point was made, "Well, what would you have done with the uplift from the taxing master?".”
“Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. Before I speak about what we are debating, it is important that I set out what we are not debating. We are not debating the value of legal aid. We are not debating access to legal aid being essential. We are not debating that we need a sustainable system. None of that is up for debate. We all agree that those are essential. People should have access to justice and it should not be fettered by a lack of finance. The legal aid system provides people in need with proper legal representation, and so it should — and so it will, and has, on my watch. <BR /> <BR />We are not talking about cutting legal aid.”
“If I want to uplift legal aid fees, I have to provide the Member's colleague in the Department of Finance with a business case that will justify that uplift. None of that is true under the current system. I do not see why those who are not accountable financially on the issue should be able to spend that element of the Department's budget. Judicial independence matters. This is about financial accountability.”
“That power exists in secondary legislation, but we would prefer to put it in primary legislation for clarity, because we feel that it would be good practice to do so and then have the remuneration orders in secondary legislation. The amendment is not a major departure from what is already in legislation. It will simply place the power in primary legislation to ensure that we have transparency and accountability. <BR /> <BR />The taxing master may well have a duty to the legal aid fund, but he does not have a duty to assess value for money or affordability, and he has no duty whatever to report on the rationale for his decision-making. That is contrary to what applies to me, because I have to give reasons for why I want to do something.”
“The two things that we will get from what I have proposed are transparency and accountability, neither of which we have under the current system. Within the legal system, solicitors are content with the proposal. The reason that barristers are not content is that it is they who have a blank cheque. They can write their brief fee and submit it to the taxing master; and the taxing master can move it up or down by as big or small a percentage as he wishes, depending on his view of the case. It is not a blank cheque for the Department. The Department would bring the remuneration orders to the Committee for scrutiny and consult the Bar, the Lady Chief Justice, the taxing master and everyone else as part of that process. <BR /> <BR />We already have the power, so that is the bit that is confusing me slightly.”
“I ask the Member, if she is confident that it is an evidence-based process at the moment and she is standing in the way of us trying to introduce an evidence-based process, to explain to me how they do it.”
“We are trying to put this into primary legislation, and then we will produce the remuneration order. That remuneration order, as with every other piece of secondary legislation, will go to the Committee for scrutiny; scrutiny that you were not allowed to have when the taxing master made a decision to raise fees. <BR /> <BR />That was not the question that I asked the Member. I asked the Member whether, if she agrees that there is a need for evidence to substantiate the claims and what the Department is doing, she can set out for me the evidence provided to her by the Bar on how a barrister calculates a brief fee. I know that the Committee wrote and asked. I have seen the response, and it certainly was not evidence-based.”
“I think that the Member is in danger of putting the cart before the horse. The first thing that we want to do is to clarify in primary legislation the power that we already have to create remuneration orders. If the Member wants examples, there are examples already that apply to solicitors. That is how the taxing master works when they are doing taxed work with solicitors' involvement. They have a remuneration order that gives them the direction, and they seem to be able to manage that fine, and it is no encroachment on their independence. Therefore, I do not see why this would be different. <BR /> <BR />Why would we go to the trouble of producing the regulations? That is secondary legislation. You do primary legislation first, and then you do secondary legislation afterwards. That is what we are trying to do.”
“In the discussions with the Bar, you asked for evidence about how brief fees were constructed and how they were calculated by the Bar. Would you like to set out for us the answer that it gave you on the evidence base that it uses to produce a brief fee?”
“However, if we do not control properly the expenditure on the taxation element, that is money that is coming out of the budget that other legal aid recipients rely on. <BR /> <BR />I correct what the Member said about delayed payments. Payments are now made much more swiftly than they have been for a long time.”
“Although this is not about legal aid payments, I do not know how anybody could say that people are not being remunerated properly, given that there has been an uplift of over 16% in the past year, with a further uplift of over 8% that I announced about a week and a half ago. Many in the public sector would look at that quite jealously. <BR /> <BR />It is not just my opinion. We looked at the distribution of practices across Northern Ireland and at what they do when it comes to providing legal aid. It is not about feels; it is about facts. From our perspective, if there were issues around people not being willing or able to practise in certain localities, we would look at that, because I agree with the Member 100%: people must have access to justice.”
“Although the police, prisons, probation and, when it comes to legal aid, the LSA, all have to do accounts, we are in a situation in which the taxed element of legal aid is not subject to any scrutiny or transparency. It is not about making cuts or taking money away from anybody; it is about ensuring that the recipients of legal aid receive the service that they are paying for with public money.”
“I have never considered legal aid solely as a cost. In fact, on my watch, legal aid expenditure has increased from, I think, £76·9 million in 2020 to approximately £120 million last year. Anyone suggesting that I am not committed to legal aid or that I do not recognise its value needs to provide substantial evidence to counter what I have just said. This is about ensuring that the legal aid money is properly spent and transparently accounted for.”
“However, this is public money from my Department, from the same budget that has to fund policing, prisons and everything else that goes with Justice. I have to account for that, and I believe that I have a responsibility to do that. It is not a power grab; it is a reassertion of powers that we already have, and which we are putting in primary legislation in order to have clarity.”
“When we tried to sort out the recent dispute, which has now been resolved, part of the challenge was that the Bar could not give us the data that we needed. We were reliant on economists and others to provide that data for us. There is a fundamental issue here, which is that with time and line billing, we will at least have the data through which we will then be able to assess other things. <BR /> <BR />When it comes to blank cheques, just to be absolutely clear, all of this will come back to the Committee for scrutiny. That is something that does not happen with the taxing master. With respect, I respect judicial independence, and when it comes to making decisions about individual cases and sentencing, I do not cross-examine, cross-question or challenge.”
“Part of the reforms that were made in light of the public demand for change included that people had to swipe in and out and give an account of their time. There is an expectation, when you are earning significant amounts of money in a privileged position, and particularly when that money comes from the public purse, that you can account for the time that you spent. As things stand, however, that does not happen. <BR /> <BR />I am not trying to restrict access to legal aid, nor am I trying to underpay those who are doing the work. However, I want to know exactly what we are paying for and how it is calculated, and to have the transparency to know whether people are being properly remunerated.”
“They rely on the taxing master to look at that and say, "Yes, that seems like a reasonable amount of time and a reasonable allowance for the complexity of the case". The taxing master has discretion, if they feel that solicitors have not properly accounted for their time, to be able to increase or reduce the amount paid. <BR /> <BR />The problem with the brief fee is that it is a number. It is a figure that the barrister puts on their value in a case. It is not broken down by hours or by the complexity of the case; all of that rests with the taxing master to make the decision. It is completely opaque. I do not know another line of work where that would happen. Let us be honest; even in this place, you used to be able to come here or not come here and still draw your salary, and there was no accountability over that.”
“The Member has talked about a couple of things since I first indicated that I wanted him to give way. The first thing to say is that there is no evidence of legal aid deserts in Northern Ireland. We heard that from the Law Society previously, but when I went out to the west to meet practitioners, they raised some issues with me that were causing them problems but have now been resolved, including remuneration for travel when courthouses were operating only as temporary hearing centres and so on. They raised issues that were causing them concern and which I did not feel were fair. <BR /> <BR />The Member hit on the point that solicitors submit the amount of time that they spend on a case and they detail the complexity of the case.”
“When you have people working on the same case who have the same qualifications and the same overheads, and those who are paid through legal aid get paid multiples of what those who are paid, for example, by the PPS get paid, that cannot be justified. By doing things in this way, we would have control over the accountability and transparency. For me, that is really important.”
“I reassure the Member — if it reassures her at all — that I would like to see people's ability to access legal aid improved significantly. In fact, we will bring proposals to the Committee shortly that will set out that wider scope of legal aid to ensure that more people are captured within it. We are also looking at things such as simplifying the domestic abuse waiver system, because we know from feedback from the professions that it has not been working well. However, this is not about that. This is about how people are paid for the work that they do. I simply think that it is reasonable and rational to ask people to account for the work that they do and to pay them accordingly.”
“By agreeing to the new clause, the Committee would be given the opportunity to scrutinise all of that. At the minute, you cannot, because that decision is taken elsewhere and is beyond our control.”
“It is not, therefore, about access but about ensuring that the money that we have — we are spending more money on legal aid this year than we ever have before, so it is not about cuts to legal aid — is transparent and fully accounted for, and that we can have confidence that people are being paid for a job well done and that the work that they put in and the remuneration that they get match. I do not think that that is unreasonable. I think that most people, in any line of employment, would expect as much. Certainly, when I was working in my professional capacity as an engineer, I was expected to keep time sheets. It is not unusual for people to have to record the work that they do and to be rewarded for its complexity as well as the time that is spent. All of that is in there.”
“I thank the Member for giving way. It is not about accessibility. The wider enabling access to justice programme that was laid with the Committee a number of months ago deals with wider issues around accessibility. For example, I talked about changing the financial threshold, because, as you know, there is an upper limit. I believe that that upper limit is now too low and excludes a lot of people who could not afford to take legal action themselves. We talked about that being the wide end of the funnel and then looking, at the other end, at what the public benefit and public good is from serving. That is because cases are also taken under legal aid that serve no particular public good, and we need to look at how we prevent that from happening.”
“It is the client who pays the barrister, and the client should have as much control as possible, because I am telling you this: if a barrister was acting on my behalf, I would want to know how many hours they had spent on my case; how much work they had been doing and how complicated it was; and whether I was getting good value for money. If I want that for me on a personal level, I absolutely expect it when it comes to public money being expended more widely.”
“I thank the Member for giving way again. On what basis would he say that we are in some way trying to ignore the experience and expertise of the Bar? Solicitors are already paid in this way. Are they less important? Do they matter less? Their clients would probably argue that they spend more time with their solicitor than with their barrister during a case. It is not unreasonable to ask barristers to simply quantify their work to allow the public and the legal aid recipient to see what they are getting. Remember, we do not pay the barristers; we pay the client.”
“I will draw two things to the Member's attention. First, this does not change the remuneration; it is not about that. It is about making the structure more transparent and accountable, and that is good when we are talking about public money. Secondly, will the Member accept that, yes, the Bar is a professional organisation and has experience in these matters, but it also has a vested interest?”
“I would have thought that, over the course of three months, this could have been done in the same manner with the Committee.”
“Again, the remuneration orders can already do that. The power already exists, and I referred to it in my opening remarks. What we are doing is putting it into primary legislation to make sure that there is no risk of misinterpretation and no lack of clarity. With respect to the criticism of the Department for bringing these things in by way of amendment, I would have thought that the Member and the Committee Chair, who themselves tabled significant amendments to the Bill after the Committee Stage, and who have had three months to wrestle with this and could have come to us for further information at any time, are on pretty thin ice. We have been willing to engage with you on your amendments to move things forward constructively.”
“Even then, it would be difficult to prove.”
“My colleague asked a really pertinent question. If there is no fee framework and there are no means to determine how many hours were worked, at what level and on what issues to constitute the brief fee, how could fraud possibly be proven? It would literally be putting a finger in the wind to decide the brief fee, and then the taxing master would look and say, "Does it seem high? Does it seem low?". That is fine for entertainment purposes, but it is not good for accounting and public money. If people could literally pick the brief fee at will and submit it and rely on the taxing master to either lift it or drop it, we would be in a situation where there would be no clarity, and proving fraud would be incredibly difficult unless you had a pattern of information where somebody was consistently putting in bills that were being reduced.”
“<BR /> <BR />It is an important point, though, that, as the Member will know, we often raise queries about our accounts with the LSA, and much of that relates to the parts of our accounts where we cannot detail where the expenditure has arisen.”
“In developing the proposals, we took account of the feedback that was received from the Law Society and the Bar Council. We also engaged with the Lady Chief Justice and the taxing master. To be clear, the Department already has those powers. What we are seeking to do in the amendment is to formalise that in primary legislation to allow us to make the regulations that will come to the Committee. Even if the Assembly does not agree to put those in the Bill, we will still have to look at reform. We believe that we have the powers to do so, but we felt that, on this occasion, given the likelihood that there will be a challenge, it was better to do it via an amendment to the Bill. It is not something that we entered into without consultation and engagement with the profession or with the taxing master and the judiciary more widely.”
“If you compare the cost of prosecution counsel with what the defence gets paid in cases at the Court of Appeal, falling into the tax cases, there is a multiplier. For barristers, it is a significant uplift. Those who operate within the legal aid system get paid significantly more, with the same overheads and working on the same case, but acting for the defence rather than the prosecution. That cannot be fair. While the taxing master may be wily, it is still against the code of ethics of the Bar and could potentially constitute fraud if, on a routine basis, somebody were to submit inflated bills that then need to be reduced. There is some evidence that a small number of counsel may be doing precisely that.”
“To be absolutely clear, these provisions do not restrict access to legal aid. The qualification for access to legal aid will remain the same. These amendments deal solely with the remuneration under taxation for the practitioners — nothing else. That does not at all change access to legal aid. We would not have brought it through if it would do that without being very clear about that as part of the enabling access to justice reform programme. <BR /> <BR />The Member also mentioned that the legislation needs to be fair and transparent. The current system is patently not fair and transparent. The Public Accounts Committee said that it was not transparent.”
“What we are trying to do through the legislation is clarify, with belt and braces, that regulation-making power, which will allow us to move forward so that we can present that information to the Committee.”
“Like all regulations, they will come to the Committee. The amendment will give members the opportunity to scrutinise them. Any future uplifts in fees in the taxation space will also be available for the Committee to scrutinise and take evidence on, which you do not have the opportunity to do at moment, because of the way in which that has been outsourced, if you like, outwith the normal 'Managing Public Money Northern Ireland' requirements, meaning that there is no opportunity for the Committee to scrutinise and thus reassure itself that the uplifts represent value for public money and fair public expenditure. Part of the reason that we are doing it this way, with regulations to follow, is that we already have a regulation-making power.”
“It is only to bring it into line with how we pay solicitors for the same work.”
“At the moment, people submit their brief fee. It can be reduced; in some cases, it is reduced by up to 50%. That begs the question of whether we are getting value for money, if people get into a habit of inflating a bill knowing that it will be reduced, but we have no ability to scrutinise that. To be clear, while this was accelerated due to the recent significant uplift, because it brought home the fact that we were going to have a significant additional expense that we had not anticipated, it is not about that. I announced in December 2024 that the enabling access to justice reform programme would reform the taxation process, so it is about expediting that so that we regain control of that portion of the legal aid budget, which is now around £30 million, so it is not an insignificant amount of money.”
“It is not a fear but a fact. Of course, the budget settlement will have an impact on how much we can spend on legal aid and how we set the fees, because I have a duty, as does the permanent secretary in my Department, to live within the budget that is set. That requires us to say how we will remunerate people for doing the work. It also requires us to have a level of transparency and clarity so that the public can properly scrutinise what is being spent.”
“By setting in place the structures that we are suggesting, we will have evidence of the kind of work that barristers are doing and the time it involves, and that will help to inform future increases in legal aid fees. Frankly, we did not have that evidence from the Bar during our recent discussions and debates.”
“I thank the Member for giving way. The point that I make is that, when I bring forward proposals for uplifts in fees, I have to provide justification and a business case to the Department of Finance. The Committee is able to scrutinise my proposals and look at the evidence base on which I make the decisions. That is not the case for decisions taken by the taxing master. You cannot scrutinise or debate them; you cannot look at a business case; and it does not have to be approved by the Department of Finance. It is simply a unilateral decision that is taken outwith the normal structures. That is not to say that we have would have done it any differently had we done it in-house, but we would have had the opportunity to properly scrutinise the evidence. <BR /> <BR />Secondly, the evidence in itself is important.”
“I thank the Member for giving way. Does he agree that it was not just that the Assembly was not informed about recent uplifts and therefore did not have the opportunity to scrutinise them but that the Department was not consulted fully on the decisions that were made? The taxing master increased the solicitor hourly rate and counsel interlocutory fees by over 50% without any recourse to us on affordability. That is of concern because, under the current arrangements, it is a part of the budget over which there is no control, and there is no transparency in how the brief fees are created. I know that the Committee wrote and asked how brief fees are created. You would fairly describe the answer as "vague".”
“The Member has mentioned that the Department was, if you like, on one side, with the Bar and the Law Society on the other. Will he not concede, however, that, on 7 May, the Law Society expressed support for our proposals to introduce hourly rates for counsel, taking the view that, if solicitors can do it and it is good enough for them, it should be applied across the board?”
“The amendment will clarify the legislative underpinning of that approach, and I commend it to Members.”