Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of compensating firms for unpaid labour resulting from the Legal Aid Agency data breach.

We appreciate the constructive way in which legal aid providers have worked with us following the serious criminal attack on the Legal Aid Agency’s (LAA) digital systems. They have continued to do vital work in challenging circumstances.

Since systems were restored in December 2025, the LAA has processed civil casework, both applications and bills, for the work undertaken by providers during the system outage. Where individual providers believe they have incurred additional billable costs, these can be claimed through the normal billing processes set out in the Costs Assessment Guidance.

We appreciate that some providers have raised concerns regarding additional administrative burdens related to contingency operations. We have worked with stakeholders to simplify processes wherever possible. This has included testing new service functionality with providers before launch and refining services based on the feedback received. For example, we extended the Average Payment Scheme for civil certificated work and temporarily suspended activities such as audits to ease administrative pressures. We have also continued to update guidance and FAQs in direct response to stakeholder input to provide clearer, more streamlined support for providers. Our priority now is working through the backlog of cases which is currently progressing well. All providers will be paid for the legal services provided under their legal aid contracts. We have no plans to set up a compensation scheme.