Labour has today written to the National Audit Office to ask them to investigate the cost to the taxpayer of the Government’s failed reforms to criminal legal aid contracting and chaotic handling of the procurement process.

Lord Falconer, Labour’s Shadow Justice Secretary, said:

“Labour, practitioners and experts warned from the start that this was a flawed policy but the Tories pushed ahead regardless.

“It is welcome that the Government has now finally scrapped its reforms but Ministers are still refusing to come clean about how much public money was spent on this project.

“Labour is today calling on the NAO to investigate the cost to the taxpayer of this whole fiasco so that Ministers can be held fully accountable.