Criminals should not be allowed to hire expensive lawyers with legal aid, Chris Grayling says Chris Grayling said the Government should not always be paying for the most senior QCs to defend suspected criminals when cheaper junior lawyers could do the job just as well. Speaking on BBC Radio Four's Today programme, he said the £1 billion legal aid bill spent on criminal cases is too high when budgets are being cut across the Government. If you look at the daily rate for a senior QC it can be between £1300 and £2,000. For somebody who's going to become a QC in a month's time, it's just over half that amount," he said. The question is can we really afford so often to use people who are paid such an additional higher rate compared with somebody's who's nearly as experienced, who's a seriously competent barrister, who will become a QC one day if they choose to do so. The reason I'm starting this discussion, and I'll be talking to the Bar Council and others, is that in some cases we're now spending £500,000 or more on legal fees. Lawyers have been fighting steep cuts to the civil legal aid budget amid fears it could restrict access to justice. The Government has already cut the legal aid rates for criminal cases once before. Maura McGowan QC, chairman of the Bar Council, said further cuts to aid for criminal cases would be damaging. She likened using inexerienced barristers for big crimnal cases to getting a junior doctor to do complex surgery.