Asked by: Ian Roome (Liberal Democrat - North Devon)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of the number of duty solicitors available in rural areas.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
It is vital that those who need legal aid can access it wherever they live in the UK.
The Legal Aid Agency (LAA) is responsible for commissioning duty solicitor services and the day-to-day administration of the court and police station duty schemes. This includes keeping membership records, allocating slots and producing and maintaining duty solicitor rotas. The LAA monitors membership across individual duty schemes. Information about duty solicitor volumes broken down by individual scheme is published as part of the LAA’s Official Statistics.
The LAA considers that all police station and court slots are adequately covered for each duty scheme in England and Wales, including those in rural areas. Provision under the duty schemes is demand led and so there may be variations in numbers across each local rota.
The Government has made significant investments in criminal legal aid, to reflect the valuable work done by defence lawyers. We are investing around £92 million per year in steady state in criminal legal aid solicitors’ fees. The majority of the funding (around £82 million) came into effect from 22 December 2025, with the remaining funding (around £10 million) to be implemented as soon as possible this year.
Recruitment and retention of duty solicitors remains crucial. A significant proportion of the around £92 million investment in solicitors’ fees is directed towards supporting duty solicitors in police stations and in the magistrates' courts, including in rural areas. This investment is in addition to the £24 million per year increase we implemented in November 2024 for work done in the police station and Youth Court.
Asked by: Ian Roome (Liberal Democrat - North Devon)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the potential implications for his Department's policies on the handling of domestic abuse cases in the family courts of the Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s October 2025 report entitled Everyday Business; and whether he plans to expand the roll-out of the Pathfinder court model in the South West.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Government welcomes the publication of the Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s report “Everyday Business: Addressing domestic abuse and continuing harm through a family court review and reporting mechanism”. We are carefully considering the recommendations made in the report and will publish a full response shortly.
This Government recognises the impact that family court proceedings can have on children and adult survivors of domestic abuse, which is why we are prioritising the protection of domestic abuse survivors going through the family court. The includes the expansion of the Pathfinder programme, which promotes safeguarding and supports victims of domestic abuse through multi-agency collaboration and expert domestic abuse support.
Launched in Dorset and North Wales in February 2022, the Pathfinder model has since expanded to nine court areas, the most recent areas being the Black Country and Shropshire, Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent and Herefordshire and Worcestershire in November 2025. In January it will be rolled out to Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, the largest court area in the South West. This will mean around a quarter of relevant cases across England and Wales follow the model.
Further expansion of the model is being considered as part of the departmental allocations process which follows the latest Spending Review, and we are unable to pre-empt the outcome of this.