WE are generally in favour of cutting red tape because there is far too much of it around.

But the price to be paid for greater efficiency in the system for compensating the victims of miscarriages of justice is surely too high.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke says he wants compensation to be speedier and simpler and we have no argument with that objective.

But to reach that goal, and to save £5m at the same time, there can no longer be any compensation for those who win their appeals against conviction at the first attempt.

In the case of someone like Angela Cannings, who served 20 months in jail after being wrongly convicted of killing two of her sons, the changes would mean that no compensation would be paid because she won her first appeal.

And we believe that is morally wrong. How can it be right for the State to wrongly deprive someone of their freedom without compensating them for the devastation of that loss?

Miscarriages of justice will always happen because it is impossible to achieve perfection in the criminal justice system. But appeals can take a long time and, even when defendants have their tarnished reputations restored, there is bound to be residual damage.

If society makes an error of judgement, so serious that it leads to something as momentous as locking someone up, it has a clear responsibility to repay its debt to that person.

And an improvement in efficiency in other cases - as welcome as that would be - does not justify the removal of that moral duty.