Adecade after Michael Gove floated the possibility of imposing a levy on large law firms to help fund justice, the Legal Services Consumer Panel yesterday resurrected the controversial proposal.

The consumer watchdog explored the feasibility of imposing the de facto tax at a workshop titled ‘Advancing access to justice through regulatory leadership’.

Dr John Sorabji, co-director of UCL Law’s Centre for Dispute Resolution, said: ‘One of the “cons” of this type of proposal is it can be viewed as yet another product of discrete reform which allows the state to avoid doing what it should do. Effective advice is the state’s responsibility. Access to the justice system is the state’s responsibility. Hiving it off to the private sector might be viewed as an unprincipled development along that route. These types of proposal could be described as yet another instance of papering over the cracks.’

Sorabji questioned what a ‘modest’ levy would look like, adding: ‘Modest to whom?’.