Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many victims of domestic abuse in (a) Newport West constituency, (b) Wales and (c) England have received Legal Aid in each of the last three years.

The requested information is not held centrally. It is not a requirement for an individual to disclose if they have been a victim of domestic abuse when applying for legal aid unless they are applying for legal aid in connection with a protective order or private family law cases under the domestic violence gateway. Consequently, it is not possible to specify how much legal aid has been spent across the whole of the legal aid scheme on domestic abuse victims in each of the last three years.

The Legal Aid Agency’s published statistics https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/legal-aid-statistics-january-to-march-2022 contains information regarding volumes of applications granted in connection with applying for protective orders and those applying for legal aid under the domestic violence gateway (see tables 6.1 and 6.8-10).