The Government has committed a £100m war-chest to the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) to fund plans to modernise the courts service and the legal aid system, it was announced yesterday (9 October).

The move was unveiled as part of Chancellor Alistair Darling’s first pre-budget report amid a comprehensive spending review (CSR), in which he also pledged an annual budget of £9.7bn to the MoJ for the next three years.