Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many applicants did not receive legal aid to pursue residency and contact cases that they would have received before the reforms to legal aid since April 2013.

The Legal Aid Agency (LAA) does not record whether an application for legal aid made following the implementation of the Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO) in April 2013 would have been granted prior to the reforms introduced by LASPO.

LASPO changed the scope of legal aid, however in many cases there are multiple reasons for a case being refused, not just that the case is out of the scope of LASPO. Usually these reasons relate to eligibility which means the applicant may not have been able to get legal aid prior to LASPO regardless of whether their case is in scope or not.

LASPO also changed some eligibility requirements, therefore the LAA would not be able to identify whether the client was refused because they no longer met eligibility requirements (i.e. a non-scope reason) where they previously would have done, as the LAA does not record this information.

An Exceptional Case Funding (ECF) application for civil legal services can be made where a case falls outside the scope of legal aid but the client or conducting solicitor believes there is evidence to support there being a requirement to provide funding because failure to do so would be a breach of, or having regard to any risk that failure to do so would be such a breach of, their Convention rights (within the meaning of the Human Rights Act 1998), or any rights of the individual to the provision of legal services that are enforceable EU rights.