Legal Aid Scheme

(asked on 13th November 2023) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he has made recent representations to the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the level of legal aid funding.


Answered by
Mike Freer Portrait
Mike Freer
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
This question was answered on 21st November 2023

The Department works closely with HM Treasury to support the justice system, and ministers and officials have regular discussions with Treasury colleagues on a range of issues including legal aid. We make representations for funding in the usual way and continue to look at how to use departmental funding in a fiscally responsible way.

Last year we spent just under £2 billion on legal aid – approximately £1bn on civil and just over £900m on criminal.

In response to the Criminal Legal Aid Independent Review (CLAIR) we introduced a 15% uplift across most fee schemes, increasing expenditure by up to £141 million a year and taking expected annual criminal legal aid spend to £1.2 billion per year.

On 25 May 2023 we published our response to the consultation on the Means Test Review. When implemented, we estimate that spending on legal aid will rise by circa £25 million.

We are also investing a further £13m into family legal aid per year, and a further £10m per year into housing legal aid through the new Housing Loss Prevention Advice Service, which launched on 01 August.

Reticulating Splines