Government gets bargain rate on Hutton inquiry

Counsel to the Hutton inquiry James Dingemans QC works for as little as £150 an hour, a third of the £450 hourly rate commanded by the BBC's silk Andrew Caldecott QC, The Lawyer can reveal.
Instructed by the Treasury Solicitor, Dingemans, of 3 Hare Court, could be commanding up to £220 an hour, but even this is cheap compared with what the BBC is likely to be paying. Heather Rogers, a senior libel junior from Matrix Chambers acting for the BBC's Andrew Gilligan, charges out at £275 an hour.
Dingemans' chambers quotes the silk as costing anything up to £300 an hour. He is understood to charge as little as £150 an hour for personal injury cases, which is a large part of his caseload but is hardly the most remunerative area of the law.
But the Government will not save that much public money during the Hutton inquiry. Brick Court's Jonathan Sumption QC, leading for the Government, has a headline hourly rate of a cool £1,000.
Jeremy Gompertz QC of 5 Essex Court, who is representing the Kelly family, is understood to be charging an hourly rate of between £180-£300 per hour.