Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, when he plans to increase legal aid rates.

We have confirmed we will be uplifting housing and immigration legal aid fees. Overall spending in these categories will increase by 24% for housing work and 30% for immigration work. This represents a significant investment – the first since 1996 – resulting in an increase of £20 million a year once fully implemented.

We have recently consulted on funding of up to £92 million more a year for criminal legal aid and prison solicitors to help address the ongoing challenges in the criminal justice system. This money is in addition to the £24 million uplift the Government introduced to the criminal duty solicitor scheme.

Following the cyber security incident, our focus has been on restoring Legal Aid Agency services, ensuring access to justice through business continuity, including delegating authority to providers and offering weekly average civil payments. These contingency measures have supported providers to continue to operate and support the public. However, we are committed to implementing the significant fee uplifts in civil and criminal legal aid as soon as operationally possible.