Michael Gove, the lord chancellor, has said that we have a two-tier justice system. One for the wealthy and one for everyone else. Those let down most badly, he said, were victims and witnesses of crime and children who have been neglected.

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Gove is right. It is now widely accepted that there is a significant gap in the delivery of justice. The highly regarded report published recently by Justice, under the watchful eye of Sir Stanley Burnton, a former court of appeal judge, starts with the words: “Our justice system is in crisis.” Although proposing a new model of dispute resolution to ease the pressure in our civil courts, the report acknowledges that “it will not in itself be sufficient to bridge the current inequality gap in the justice system”.

However, when it comes to the cause of the inequality in our justice system, Gove identifies only, as he put it, “antiquated ways of working”. Having argued for a reformed, modernised justice system for many years, I accept that changes are urgently needed to bring our courts into the 21st century. But that alone is not enough.

What the lord chancellor ignores is the impact of the decisions taken by the coalition government in the last five years. Access to our civil courts has been severely restricted by the combination of: the removal of legal aid from some cases based on their type, not their merit; a high financial threshold for the receipt of legal aid in other cases; and a failure to deliver a safety net for vulnerable individuals by the exceptional funding arrangements.

In February 2015, the public accounts committee delivered a damning verdict. As they put it, “it is deeply disturbing that the Ministry of Justice’s changes to civil legal aid were based not on evidence but on an objective to cut costs as quickly as possible”. Or interpreted another way, the overriding justice strategy of the last government was simply to “get the money out” of the system.

The same is true in our criminal courts. Significant cuts to funding for the police, for the Crown Prosecution Service, for probation etc, have put the long-term viability of our criminal justice system in doubt. That is what prompted the various reports and observations, including that by Sir Brian Leveson, which Gove now prays in aid. Outside the courts, the position is not dissimilar. The introduction of fees, which are simply unaffordable to most people, has led to a huge drop-off in cases in employment tribunals.

Gove and others may be right to say that the answer to these problems is not simply to turn the clock back. But real clarity of purpose is needed. Are the proposed changes driven by a desire to reinstate the “access to justice” principle? Or are they a thinly disguised continuation of the “get the money out” strategy?

Time will tell. But if “access to justice” is to be the real driver, we need to go a lot further than Gove has suggested. Better use of technology, streamlined processes and speedier outcomes would be welcome. But making our courts more efficient for those already able to access them does not help those who have been left outside the system and are unprotected.

Having consulted widely with victims in the course of my work as director of public prosecutions and, more recently, heading up Labour’s victims’ taskforce, it is clear to me that most victims of crime want a good deal more than improved procedures in court. They rightly point to the need for investment in much-improved victims’ services, legally enforceable rights and a cultural shift in thinking.