Legal Aid Scheme: Domestic Abuse

(asked on 2nd February 2022) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent assessment has been made of the adequacy of support provided through the legal aid system for victims of domestic abuse in Newport West constituency.


Answered by
James Cartlidge Portrait
James Cartlidge
Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
This question was answered on 10th February 2022

Access to justice is a fundamental right and this Government is committed to ensuring that everyone gets the timely support they need, including legal aid, to navigate the justice system.

The Government is clear that victims of domestic abuse must have access to the help that they need.

The Ministry of Justice has provided just under £151m to victim support services this year (2021/22), which is an increase of over £100m on the budget in 2010/11. This includes an extra £51m to increase support for rape and domestic abuse victims, building on the emergency funding to help domestic abuse and sexual violence services meet COVID-driven demand.

We are currently conducting a review of the means test for legal aid, and this is specifically considering domestic abuse victims. We plan to publish this consultation shortly. We have also widened the evidence requirements for domestic abuse victims, making it easier for victims to obtain and provide the evidence they need to access legal aid and removed all time limits for providing evidence. We have legislated so that GPs can no longer charge for providing evidence.

We have already made some further changes to improve access to legal aid by removing the cap on the amount of mortgage debt used in determining access to civil legal aid.

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