Last chance to target Lib Dems on legal aid cuts...

Cards on the table - unlike a fair number of lawyers, I don't see how you can make the case that legal aid can avoid cuts at a time of hugely strained public finances.

On balance, there is also something to the Government's argument that legal aid in England and Wales is relatively costly by international standards, even if the case has been overstated and some of the reasons for that expense are in dispute.

I also don't see how the Liberal Democrats can be condemned for not implementing their manifesto in Government. They are very much the junior partner in the coalition - they didn't get anywhere near winning.

But, accepting all that, it's high time - maybe the last available moment - to put some pressure on the Liberal Democrats to extract some meaningful compromises on the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill. It's a piece of legislation that been rushed through clearly in the expectation by the Government that it will face no potent opposition.

So far that calculation has proved largely correct. Whatever you feel about legal aid, it's a good rule of thumb that such a dynamic, lacking rigorous debate and Parliamentary scrutiny, often leads to messy legislation or the laws of unintended consequence, an outcome that looks likely here.

And there are elements in the bill which just look plain wrong-headed. If there's a credible case for clause 12, which paves the way to means-test legal aid for those held in police custody, a measure introduced after a string of miscarriages of justice, I haven't seen it.

Likewise, moves to withdraw legal aid from clinical negligence - a measure Lord Justice Jackson criticised this month - and some areas of welfare cases, are at best questionable and may end up hitting the tax-payer in other areas.

Even the supportive Parliamentary committee that examined the reforms earlier this year and the Ministry of Justice's own impact assessment both concluded that there was some risk that rushed legislation would lead to increased burdens on the taxpayer by other agencies, a key argument of critics of the bill.

So it seems that the last chance for the profession and the campaigners is to go hard after the Liberal Democrats, who are currently occupied with an angst-laden party conference focused on their own pangs at being aligned with the Conservatives.

That a few party figures have given the odd sympathetic quote on legal aid to the Guardian or Independent, strangely, isn't going to quite cut the mustard. The self-styled conscience of Government needs to be reminded that there are matters of importance occurring outside the conference hall. And now would be good.

Click here for an extended look at legal aid reform.

• Related: Lord Justice Jackson calls for Govt rethink on legal aid cuts