Access to Legal Aid

4. What progress his Department has made on improving access to legal aid.

Last year, to ensure accessibility to vital support, we spent £1.7 billion on legal aid. We are consulting on changes that will result in an additional 2 million people in England and Wales having access to civil legal aid, with 3.5 million more people having access to legal aid at the magistrates court. By any measure, that is a very significant expansion of access. Alongside that, we propose to invest up to £135 million a year in criminal legal aid, more than £7 million in improving access to housing legal aid, and £8 million in expanding access to immigration legal aid.

Next month I will be visiting Northampton Community Law Service, which has proved indispensable to many of my constituents. What steps are being taken to ensure sufficient funding streams for areas of specialist legal advice and support that are proving to be the most in demand amid the cost of living crisis, particularly debt and employment law?

My hon. Friend, who is a champion for his constituents, makes the important point that these are increasingly important matters in the current economic context. That is why we have committed to ensuring that specialist legal advice services continue to provide support for those who need it most, and it is why, in particular, we will be spending £5 million to pilot early legal advice on social welfare matters, including debt, this summer. Throughout 2020 we provided £5.4 million of grant funding to not-for-profit providers of legal advice, supporting more than 70 organisations to help vulnerable people resolve their legal problems. I am pleased to confirm that those rounds of funding provided more than £130,000 to Northampton Community Law Service.

From the Minister’s answers, we might think everything is rosy in the world of legal aid, but the reality is that there are legal aid deserts in many parts of the country where practitioners have packed up and stopped providing vital access to the justice system. What is the Minister doing to ensure that, in every part of England, there is fair access to legal aid?

That is a fair question, but I do not accept that there are areas of the country where people are denied access to justice because there are no legal aid providers. The Legal Aid Agency keeps market capacity under constant review and takes immediate action where gaps appear by tendering for new providers and amending contractual requirements to encourage new providers into the market. In England and Wales, legal advice on housing matters is available, wherever people are, through the Civil Legal Advice telephone service.

On access to legal aid, as I said, we are consulting on proposals that will increase the number of people who can access civil legal aid by 2 million, which is a significant measure.

I call the shadow Minister, Afzal Khan.

I thank the hon. Member for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer) for raising the importance of access to legal aid. In fact, his region—the east midlands—has seen an above average fall in access to criminal and civil legal aid since 2013. Compared with England and Wales as a whole, the region also has a higher proportion of local authorities with no providers of legal aid on housing, immigration, family and community care law. These legal aid deserts are worst for family and community care law, with the cost of living crisis compounding that further. Victims are being let down at every stage.

Legal aid deserts are a direct result of chronic underfunding, and they deny justice to victims across the UK. The Government have failed to deliver even the bare minimum of what Sir Christopher Bellamy advised in his review. I understand that the Government are considering a civil sustainability review, so perhaps the Justice Secretary will provide further details. The Government like to pay lip service to levelling up the country, but when will the Lord Chancellor level up access to justice?

It would probably be more helpful if I referred to what the hon. Gentleman said on a previous occasion. On 15 March, in response to the Deputy Prime Minister’s statement about criminal legal aid and the measures that we were taking, he said:

“Today’s announcement and response to the Bellamy review is welcome, particularly the Government’s commitment to increase legal aid rates by the 15% that Sir Christopher Bellamy recommended.” —[Official Report, 15 March 2022; Vol. 710, c. 777.]

That is what we are doing. He recommended £135 million of additional funding for criminal legal aid. That is what we are proposing and what we are consulting on. So my job as I see it is very clear. It is to get on with ensuring that those criminal legal aid rates are increased as soon as is practicable, and we look forward to introducing a statutory instrument later this year.

I call the Scottish National party spokesperson, Stuart C. McDonald.

I wonder if I might suggest that another review of partygate could help inform Government policy on legal aid and access to justice. I say that because of the widely perceived link between a person’s ability to pay for legal advice and the number of fixed penalty notices that that person might receive, compared to others attending the very same event. So during his consultation, will the Minister speak to junior Downing Street staff and civil servants about their views on the significance of access to and the affordability of criminal legal advice?

It’s a nice try, but our discussions in Downing Street are about the measures that we are bringing forward to tackle crime, not least the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, which the Labour party voted against and Opposition Members spoke out against, and which will see violent and sexual offenders serving longer in prison. That is where our focus is and the focus of the British people is.