Andrew Gwynne
Main Page: Andrew Gwynne (Labour (Co-op) - Gorton and Denton)Department Debates - View all Andrew Gwynne's debates with the Cabinet Office
Oral Answers to Questions
Andrew Gwynne Excerpts(2 years, 6 months ago)
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James Cartlidge
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.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
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?
James Cartlidge
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.