Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment his Department has made of the impact of the reduction in the number of duty solicitors at police stations since 2017 on access to justice; and if he will take steps to increase the number of duty solicitors at police stations.

The Legal Aid Agency (LAA) is satisfied that there continues to be sufficient duty solicitor coverage on the duty schemes operating across England and Wales. Provision under the duty schemes is demand led and so there may be variations in numbers across each local rota or other fluctuations in numbers depending on prevailing market conditions, and other internal factors such as firms merging or other consolidation activity.

The 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 quarterly statistics. Additionally, there are 1,385 accredited police station representatives able to provide advice to individuals at the police station.

At a national level, the LAA monitors capacity across criminal legal aid contracts on an ongoing basis and, where demand is greater than the available supply, takes action to secure additional provision to ensure the continuity of legal aid-funded services.

More generally in relation to criminal legal aid we introduced a 15% uplift across most fee schemes in line with the recommendations made in the Criminal Legal Aid Independent Review, including the police station fee scheme. This funding began to come into effect from the end of September 2022, and we subsequently agreed to extend it to the majority of cases already progressing in the Crown Court. We are investing a further £16m into the police station scheme over 2024-25. Following these reforms, an increase in expenditure of up to £141 million a year will take expected annual criminal legal aid spend to £1.2 billion.

Overall, our ambitious reforms will deliver a stronger justice system for all who rely on it. They will reinforce a more sustainable market, with publicly funded criminal defence practice seen as a viable long-term career choice befitting of our world-class legal professionals.