Has the legal aid budget 'grown and grown and grown'?

The government's attempts to reduce the legal aid bill by reforming its eligibility criteria and fee structure has proved to be a controversial policy.

Campaigners are set to take their fight against these reforms onto London's streets on Friday, promising a demonstration culminating at the gates of the Ministry of Justice.

The man who would like the keys to those gates - Labour's Shadow Justice Secretary Sadiq Khan - appeared on Sky yesterday to discuss the move, and took issue with host Dermot Murnaghan's charactarisation of the legal aid budget as one that "just grew and grew and grew and grew."

Full Fact looked at this issue late last year and found that recent spending on legal aid has fallen from its peak in 2003/04.

More recent figures suggest that expenditure has continued to fall since 2009/10, with £1.9 billion spent in 2012/13 according to Ministry of Justice data.