Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he has made a recent estimate of the number of local authority areas in (a) Wales and (b) England that do not have a housing legal aid provider.

The Legal Aid Agency (LAA) keeps market capacity under constant review and takes immediate action where gaps appear by tendering for additional services. In England and Wales, legal advice on housing matters is available, wherever people are, through the Civil Legal Advice telephone service.

The LAA procures legal aid services at Procurement Area level, rather than at local authority level. The LAA aims to ensure there is a minimum of one legal aid provider for housing in each Procurement Area. The Government is injecting more than £10m into housing legal aid through our reforms to the Housing Possession Court Duty Scheme.

There are six Procurement Areas in which this standard is not met: City of Kingston upon Hull, Cheshire, Shropshire, South Tyneside, Staffordshire, Wigan. Individuals in these areas may access housing advice via the Civil Legal Advice telephone services or via providers in neighbouring Procurement Areas.