The government is deliberately misleading the public, quoting inaccurate figures to force through its proposed changes to legal aid (Report, 2 October). A Ministry of Justice spokesperson has said: "At around £2bn a year, we have one of the most expensive legal aid systems in the world. At a time when everyone has to tighten their belts, we can no longer close our eyes to the fact legal aid is taxpayers' money and it is costing too much."

This statement is deliberately planted to suggest that the legal profession has ignored pleas by governments to reduce costs, costs it has previously suggested to the public are "spiralling". The MoJ's own statistics bulletin from 25 June 2013 shows that not only is this statement inaccurate, it is damagingly misleading. The figures show that spending on the British criminal justice system is falling and has been for a number of years. In 2009-10, the total criminal legal aid spend was £1.12bn, which fell by £146m (13%) to £975m in 2012-13. Similarly, the figure for very high cost cases, the most complex criminal trials involving terrorism and serious crime, has almost halved over the same period, falling from £124m in 2007-08 to £67m in 2012-13.

The government's claim that we have one of the most expensive legal systems in the world is also wholly inaccurate. We have a different criminal justice system to other countries, based on an adversarial process, as the MoJ well knows. It means our legal aid budget includes figures that in other countries are simply transferred to other budgets. Figures from the 2012 European commission report on the efficiency of justice shows that of 14 European legal systems, England and Wales actually sits 10th, based on legal spend per inhabitant. At €80.8, the legal spend for England and Wales is smaller than that of Spain, Norway, Austria and Belgium and is dwarfed by the likes of Switzerland (€167.1) and Luxembourg (€137.7).

Finally the spokesperson says: "Our proposals would have more of an impact on those earning the most from legal aid – under our proposals a criminal barrister earning £530,000 would still receive around £430,000." These figures are wholly unrepresentative of the average earnings of the criminal bar and their selection is a deliberate attempt to mislead the public. The MoJ's own figures reveal that a barrister in this country is likely to earn less than £30,000 a year from the criminal legal aid fund and the suggestion that the proposed further cuts will affect only top earners is wrong. They are across the board. As a profession we have made many suggestions to the justice secretary as to how he can make significant savings. These have been rejected in favour of his desire to slash fees to barristers that have already been cut by 35% over the last six years.

We prosecute and defend the most serious criminal cases in the country. Surely we should be entitled to expect integrity from our MoJ as opposed to cynical attempts to mislead the public for short-term political expediency?

Alistair MacDonald QC Leader, North Eastern circuit, Gregory Bull QC Leader, Wales and Chester circuit, Mark Wall QC Leader, Midlands circuit, Andrew Langdon QC Leader, Western circuit, Rick Pratt QC Leader, Northern circuit, Sarah Forshaw QC Leader, South Eastern circuit

• Lady Hale maintains that the judiciary should be more reflective of society as a whole regarding gender and ethnic minorities (Report, 3 October). Presumably this is because different experiences, backgrounds and characters may help in producing wise judgments. If so, wouldn't it be valuable if some judges were very poor, some lived on dangerous inner-city estates and even if some had a life of crime? This should remind us of the element of chance in court outcomes: pity those poor defendants who encounter severe judges, living in another world, lacking in appreciation of the defendants' plight.

Peter Cave

London

• This article was amended on 4 October 2013. In the earlier version, the letter above from several QCs said the total criminal legal aid spend was £1.12bn in 2007-08. In fact that was the figure for 2009-10.