Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps her Department is taking to help ensure access to legal aid in Harpenden and Berkhamsted constituency.

The Legal Aid Agency (LAA) is responsible for commissioning legal aid services in England and Wales. The LAA monitors the numbers of providers in each procurement area and across all categories of law. It takes operational action where it can, to respond to market pressures that may arise and works closely with the Ministry of Justice on policy solutions concerning the supply of legal aid.

The LAA is satisfied that there is adequate access to legal aid services in Harpenden and Berkhamsted across all categories of legal aid. Provision includes local services such as duty solicitor schemes and national services such as early legal advice under the Housing Loss Prevention Advice Service and advice relating to housing, debt, education and discrimination via the Civil Legal Advice telephone service.

Information about the number of legal aid providers contracted to provide services are published as part of the LAA’s statistics [see tables 9.1-9.9]. These statistics are used by the LAA as management information to monitor the supply of legal aid services over time, in different areas of law and different regions of England and Wales.

For civil contracts, the LAA secures supply across designated larger geographic areas known as procurement areas, as opposed to local authority or constituency areas. The Midlands and East of England, Eastern, and South Herefordshire procurement areas encompass Harpenden and Berkhamsted. All exceed the minimum number of providers with legal aid contracts.

The commissioning of criminal legal aid contracts is undertaken at a national level. However, the LAA takes steps to ensure there is adequate coverage on each of its local duty solicitor schemes. Provision under the local duty solicitor schemes is demand-led and so there may be variations in numbers across each local rota.