Immigration: Legal Aid

15. What recent assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of legal aid provision for immigration cases.

Access to legal aid matters. We have taken action to broaden access in immigration and asylum cases by: uplifting fees for work done under the Illegal Migration Act 2023, when it commences; providing up to £1.4 million this year for accreditation and re-accreditation of senior caseworkers conducting legal aid work; allowing detained duty advice scheme providers to give guidance remotely, where appropriate; and introducing payment for travel time between immigration removal centres and detained duty advice scheme surgeries.

The Bar Council of England and Wales has submitted its grave concerns to the Ministry of Justice’s review of civil legal aid, citing that it is

“not sustainable in its current form”

and that it has significant concern

“in relation to future availability of counsel”

in immigration and asylum cases. It also notes that in real terms civil legal aid fees have now halved compared with what they were 28 years ago. What are the next steps to ensure the future of legal aid in immigration cases, or is justice now for only the wealthy?

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that important question. We are broadening access to legal aid. The means test review, when fully implemented, will put an additional £25 million into legal aid and bring an additional £2 million into the scope of legal aid. We are rolling out the housing loss prevention advice service—that is another £10 million going in. There will be up to £141 million going into legal aid. We are also rolling out the review of civil legal aid, which will report later this year. We will be issuing a Green Paper in July to look at what we need to do to have a sustainable, resilient and well-resourced system, because we want high-quality lawyers doing civil legal aid. That is vital for the kind of country we want to be.