Asked by: Julian Smith (Conservative - Skipton and Ripon)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of court mandated mediation for larger businesses.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Government recognises the benefits of mediation in resolving disputes swiftly and consensually. We are piloting mandatory mediation for small money claims (under £10,000) as part of the county court process. This pilot runs until May 2026 and will be evaluated before decisions on further mandatory use across civil law.
Asked by: Julian Smith (Conservative - Skipton and Ripon)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the potential implications for his policies of the Civil Justice Council report entitled Review of Litigation Funding - Final Report.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Government recognises the critical role third-party litigation funding plays in access to justice and is committed to ensuring it works fairly for all. That is why we intend to introduce legislation to enact the two primary recommendations of the Civil Justice Council’s review when parliamentary time allows. Once this work has been completed, my officials will consider the remaining recommendations in more detail.
New legislation will mitigate the effects of the PACCAR judgment by clarifying that Litigation Funding Agreements are not Damages Based Agreements, with prospective effect. Furthermore, the Government intends to introduce proportionate regulation of Litigation Funding Agreements.
Further details can be read in the Written Ministerial Statement issued on 17 December 2025: https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2025-12-17/hcws1192.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent discussions he has had with HM Courts and Tribunals Service on reducing the backlog of criminal cases in Lincolnshire.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Lincoln Crown Court has continued to reduce outstanding workloads through the creation of a fourth Crown Court room in May 2021, utilising all Crown Court sitting day allocations for this financial year. To mitigate delays in setting trial dates, Lincoln actively identifies cases that are too large to be heard within Lincoln, moving these within the East Midlands in agreement with relevant parties.
The Government inherited a justice system in crisis, with a record and rising open caseload of nearly 80,000 criminal cases waiting to be heard and too many victims waiting years for justice. Investment alone is not enough - that is why this Government asked Sir Brian Leveson to undertake his Independent Review of the Criminal Courts. On 2 December, the Deputy Prime Minister responded to the first part of that review and set out why reform is necessary, alongside investment and modernisation.
Asked by: Julian Smith (Conservative - Skipton and Ripon)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of providing long-term funding for specialist sexual violence and abuse services.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
My Department is committed to the Government’s pledge to halve Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) in a decade. We have committed £550 million to victim support services over the next three years – the biggest investment in victim support services to date.
The 42 Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) in England and Wales receive annual grant funding from the Department’s victim and witness budget to commission local practical, emotional, and therapeutic support services for victims of all crime types. This includes services for victims of sexual abuse. In addition, MoJ provides funding through the Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Fund to over 60 specialist organisations, supporting victims of all ages to cope with their experiences and move forward with their lives.
On 1 December 2025, all PCCs and RASASF recipients received confirmation that their grants will be extended for two years until March 2028, with a 2% year-on-year uplift.
In light of the announcement to abolish the PCC function in May 2028, we have held back confirmation of year three funding. This enables us to explore changes to the longer-term delivery of victims funding to ensure this is delivered in the best way in the future. This will include extensive engagement with partners, including PCCs and RASASF recipients, to ensure we can continue to provide the right support to victims.
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will make an estimate of the costs incurred by Department as a result of the Legal Aid Agency data breach on 23 April 2025.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
This data breach was the result of serious criminal activity but it was enabled by the fragility of the LAA’s IT systems as a result of the long years of neglect and mismanagement of the justice system under the last Conservative Government. Upon taking office, I was shocked to see how fragile our legal aid systems were. The previous Government knew about the vulnerabilities of the Legal Aid Agency digital systems, but failed to invest. By contrast, since taking office, this Government has prioritised work to rebuild the LAA digital systems. That includes the allocation of over £20 million in extra funding this year to stabilise and transform the Legal Aid Agency digital services as we build back better in response to this attack. We are now in a position where all providers have online access to our civil legal aid services currently available via SiLAS, alongside our criminal legal aid services, which were restored in September.
This is an evolving situation but to date the total operational and digital costs of the incident are forecast to be £22 million for this financial year.
All providers have been able to access payment for work carried out whilst systems have been offline.
For some types of legal aid this meant adjusting the way in which providers submitted their claim for payment to the LAA. From 19 May, providers have been able to claim their usual payments for Legal Help, Crime Lower & Mediation work via a contingency process. Due to previous investment, the criminal legal aid systems were more modern, and internal access was restored more quickly. This enabled the LAA to resume paying Crown Court bills from early June.
It was necessary to agree a payment contingency for Civil Representation work with HM Treasury. This led to the implementation of the Average Payment Scheme on 27 May. The Average Payment Scheme enables providers to opt in to receive a temporary average payment for Civil Representation work that would otherwise be due, or where the value of their outstanding work varies from this, to apply for a specific payment to meet the cost of that work. Payments are made on a weekly basis. The weekly average payment is based on previous payments made to that provider over the 3 month period preceding the cyber incident. Some providers have not opted in to receive payment in this way and wait for the restoration of the systems, but payments are there should they need it. We are unable to quantify the number of legal aid providers who have not opted in to receive an average payment in each of the weeks it has been available.
Providers are obligated to act in the best interests of their clients both by their own SRA regulatory requirements and by their LAA Contracts. In circumstances where a legal aid provider is unable to continue providing representation in an ongoing case, for whatever reason, they have a professional and contractual obligation toward their client to assist them in finding alternative representation.
We have not seen any evidence of legal aid providers leaving the market directly as a result of the cyber-attack. Since April 2023 there has been a net increase in the number of providers contracted to deliver legal aid services.
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many (a) barristers, and (b) solicitors have not been paid by the Legal Aid Agency since the data breach of 23 April 2025.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
This data breach was the result of serious criminal activity but it was enabled by the fragility of the LAA’s IT systems as a result of the long years of neglect and mismanagement of the justice system under the last Conservative Government. Upon taking office, I was shocked to see how fragile our legal aid systems were. The previous Government knew about the vulnerabilities of the Legal Aid Agency digital systems, but failed to invest. By contrast, since taking office, this Government has prioritised work to rebuild the LAA digital systems. That includes the allocation of over £20 million in extra funding this year to stabilise and transform the Legal Aid Agency digital services as we build back better in response to this attack. We are now in a position where all providers have online access to our civil legal aid services currently available via SiLAS, alongside our criminal legal aid services, which were restored in September.
This is an evolving situation but to date the total operational and digital costs of the incident are forecast to be £22 million for this financial year.
All providers have been able to access payment for work carried out whilst systems have been offline.
For some types of legal aid this meant adjusting the way in which providers submitted their claim for payment to the LAA. From 19 May, providers have been able to claim their usual payments for Legal Help, Crime Lower & Mediation work via a contingency process. Due to previous investment, the criminal legal aid systems were more modern, and internal access was restored more quickly. This enabled the LAA to resume paying Crown Court bills from early June.
It was necessary to agree a payment contingency for Civil Representation work with HM Treasury. This led to the implementation of the Average Payment Scheme on 27 May. The Average Payment Scheme enables providers to opt in to receive a temporary average payment for Civil Representation work that would otherwise be due, or where the value of their outstanding work varies from this, to apply for a specific payment to meet the cost of that work. Payments are made on a weekly basis. The weekly average payment is based on previous payments made to that provider over the 3 month period preceding the cyber incident. Some providers have not opted in to receive payment in this way and wait for the restoration of the systems, but payments are there should they need it. We are unable to quantify the number of legal aid providers who have not opted in to receive an average payment in each of the weeks it has been available.
Providers are obligated to act in the best interests of their clients both by their own SRA regulatory requirements and by their LAA Contracts. In circumstances where a legal aid provider is unable to continue providing representation in an ongoing case, for whatever reason, they have a professional and contractual obligation toward their client to assist them in finding alternative representation.
We have not seen any evidence of legal aid providers leaving the market directly as a result of the cyber-attack. Since April 2023 there has been a net increase in the number of providers contracted to deliver legal aid services.
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many firms have ceased being legal aid providers since 23 April 2025.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
This data breach was the result of serious criminal activity but it was enabled by the fragility of the LAA’s IT systems as a result of the long years of neglect and mismanagement of the justice system under the last Conservative Government. Upon taking office, I was shocked to see how fragile our legal aid systems were. The previous Government knew about the vulnerabilities of the Legal Aid Agency digital systems, but failed to invest. By contrast, since taking office, this Government has prioritised work to rebuild the LAA digital systems. That includes the allocation of over £20 million in extra funding this year to stabilise and transform the Legal Aid Agency digital services as we build back better in response to this attack. We are now in a position where all providers have online access to our civil legal aid services currently available via SiLAS, alongside our criminal legal aid services, which were restored in September.
This is an evolving situation but to date the total operational and digital costs of the incident are forecast to be £22 million for this financial year.
All providers have been able to access payment for work carried out whilst systems have been offline.
For some types of legal aid this meant adjusting the way in which providers submitted their claim for payment to the LAA. From 19 May, providers have been able to claim their usual payments for Legal Help, Crime Lower & Mediation work via a contingency process. Due to previous investment, the criminal legal aid systems were more modern, and internal access was restored more quickly. This enabled the LAA to resume paying Crown Court bills from early June.
It was necessary to agree a payment contingency for Civil Representation work with HM Treasury. This led to the implementation of the Average Payment Scheme on 27 May. The Average Payment Scheme enables providers to opt in to receive a temporary average payment for Civil Representation work that would otherwise be due, or where the value of their outstanding work varies from this, to apply for a specific payment to meet the cost of that work. Payments are made on a weekly basis. The weekly average payment is based on previous payments made to that provider over the 3 month period preceding the cyber incident. Some providers have not opted in to receive payment in this way and wait for the restoration of the systems, but payments are there should they need it. We are unable to quantify the number of legal aid providers who have not opted in to receive an average payment in each of the weeks it has been available.
Providers are obligated to act in the best interests of their clients both by their own SRA regulatory requirements and by their LAA Contracts. In circumstances where a legal aid provider is unable to continue providing representation in an ongoing case, for whatever reason, they have a professional and contractual obligation toward their client to assist them in finding alternative representation.
We have not seen any evidence of legal aid providers leaving the market directly as a result of the cyber-attack. Since April 2023 there has been a net increase in the number of providers contracted to deliver legal aid services.
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many legal aid cases have been dropped since 23 April 2025.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
This data breach was the result of serious criminal activity but it was enabled by the fragility of the LAA’s IT systems as a result of the long years of neglect and mismanagement of the justice system under the last Conservative Government. Upon taking office, I was shocked to see how fragile our legal aid systems were. The previous Government knew about the vulnerabilities of the Legal Aid Agency digital systems, but failed to invest. By contrast, since taking office, this Government has prioritised work to rebuild the LAA digital systems. That includes the allocation of over £20 million in extra funding this year to stabilise and transform the Legal Aid Agency digital services as we build back better in response to this attack. We are now in a position where all providers have online access to our civil legal aid services currently available via SiLAS, alongside our criminal legal aid services, which were restored in September.
This is an evolving situation but to date the total operational and digital costs of the incident are forecast to be £22 million for this financial year.
All providers have been able to access payment for work carried out whilst systems have been offline.
For some types of legal aid this meant adjusting the way in which providers submitted their claim for payment to the LAA. From 19 May, providers have been able to claim their usual payments for Legal Help, Crime Lower & Mediation work via a contingency process. Due to previous investment, the criminal legal aid systems were more modern, and internal access was restored more quickly. This enabled the LAA to resume paying Crown Court bills from early June.
It was necessary to agree a payment contingency for Civil Representation work with HM Treasury. This led to the implementation of the Average Payment Scheme on 27 May. The Average Payment Scheme enables providers to opt in to receive a temporary average payment for Civil Representation work that would otherwise be due, or where the value of their outstanding work varies from this, to apply for a specific payment to meet the cost of that work. Payments are made on a weekly basis. The weekly average payment is based on previous payments made to that provider over the 3 month period preceding the cyber incident. Some providers have not opted in to receive payment in this way and wait for the restoration of the systems, but payments are there should they need it. We are unable to quantify the number of legal aid providers who have not opted in to receive an average payment in each of the weeks it has been available.
Providers are obligated to act in the best interests of their clients both by their own SRA regulatory requirements and by their LAA Contracts. In circumstances where a legal aid provider is unable to continue providing representation in an ongoing case, for whatever reason, they have a professional and contractual obligation toward their client to assist them in finding alternative representation.
We have not seen any evidence of legal aid providers leaving the market directly as a result of the cyber-attack. Since April 2023 there has been a net increase in the number of providers contracted to deliver legal aid services.
Asked by: Martin Wrigley (Liberal Democrat - Newton Abbot)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of the (a) discontinuement and (b) funding freeze of the Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Fund on waiting lists.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
My Department is committed to the Government’s pledge to halve Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) in a decade. We have committed £550 million to victim support services over the next three years – the biggest investment in victim support services to date.
On 1 December 2025, all recipients of the Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Fund (RASASF) received confirmation that their Ministry of Justice grants will be extended for two years until March 2028, with a 2% year-on-year uplift. Given this, there will be no impacts on waiting lists as funding has not been discontinued or frozen.
Asked by: Martin Wrigley (Liberal Democrat - Newton Abbot)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, when her department plans to confirm allocations for the Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Fund for 2026/27.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
My Department is committed to the Government’s pledge to halve Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) in a decade. We have committed £550 million to victim support services over the next three years – the biggest investment in victim support services to date.
On 1 December 2025, all recipients of the Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Fund (RASASF) received confirmation that their Ministry of Justice grants will be extended for two years until March 2028, with a 2% year-on-year uplift. Given this, there will be no impacts on waiting lists as funding has not been discontinued or frozen.