Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much funding has been provided to legal aid providers to represent appellants in the First-tier Tribunal Immigration and Asylum Chamber in each year since 2020, broken down by (a) ethnicity, and (b) nationality of the appellant.

Legal aid expenditure in respect of cases before the First-Tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum) broken down by ethnicity is set out in the annexed table. Data is self-reported to the Legal Aid Agency (LAA) by applicants or their legal aid solicitor, it is not verified by the LAA. It is not mandatory for applicants to complete the Equality and Diversity section of an application. Where this has been left blank ethnicity is recorded as ‘unknown’.

Legal aid funding is not paid directly to the individual in receipt of legal aid. Legal aid is only paid to legal providers for the provision of legal advice and representation. Data in the annexed table therefore reflects expenditure relating to bills submitted by legal aid providers.

Information relating to nationality of applicants is not centrally held.