Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many providers of family law legal aid were accepting new legal aid clients in England and Wales on the latest date for which data is available.

The information is not centrally held.

Legal aid services are delivered by independent providers that hold a legal aid contract. Providers are not required to report to the Legal Aid Agency (LAA) on their day-to-day capacity to take new cases.

The LAA publishes information about the number of providers which hold a family contract and therefore could potentially take on a new case. These can be accessed through the following link (procurement maps).