Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will make an estimate of the number of Law Centres that have closed in England since 2010; and how much funding his Department has provided to Law Centres since 2010.

The Ministry of Justice does not hold direct information on the number of law centres in England or those that have ceased operating.

Since 2015/16, the Legal Aid Agency has paid £57.2m to law centres across England and Wales, in respect of Civil and Criminal Legal Aid work. We are unable to provide the information from 2010 onwards as Legal Aid Provider Statistics data is only available from 2015/16 onwards.

Further, the Government has invested over £25m in grant funding for the not-for-profit sector including law centres since 2014.

In March 2023, the Government announced a new £10.4m Improving Outcomes Through Legal Support (IOTLS) grant. This grant runs from July 2023 until March 2025 and is being administered by the Access to Justice Foundation on behalf of the Ministry of Justice. The grant has been awarded to 59 organisations across England and Wales, including 15 law centres. This funding will enable organisations to provide legal advice and support to help people resolve their problems as early as possible.

The IOTLS grant builds on the previous legal support grants including the £4.8m Help Accessing Legal Support grant which ran from September 2022 until June 2023 and supported 52 front line organisations including 14 law centres.

Between April 2020 and March 2021, during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, organisations were awarded Government emergency grant funding totalling £5.4m via the Covid-19 Specialist Advice Service Scheme. Of the total amount, £3m was distributed to law centres via the Law Centres Network. This funding enabled organisations to continue providing critical services to the most vulnerable and prevented the closure of a number of law centres.