Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, for what reason the Legal Aid Agency's Sign in to Legal Aid Services implementation has been delayed; what specific security issues have arisen; and when updates on its postponed launch will be made available.

The Department has worked around the clock to ensure that digital services were restored as swiftly and safely as possible. There has been no delay to implementation of the new secure single sign-in tool for LAA online services (SiLAS), which went live on 11 August following a period of testing with providers

Since then, we have worked closely with providers to test functionality before bringing providers back onto our systems in a careful, phased approach. We are now in a position where all providers have online access to our civil legal aid services via SiLAS, alongside our criminal legal aid services, which were restored in September.