Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much has been paid to each of the 50 highest (a) barrister and (b) chambers beneficiaries of criminal legal aid payments in the latest period for which figures are available.

In relation to barristers, a statistical publication was released on 2 January 2014 which is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/legal-aid-statistics-barrister-fee-income-from-public-sources-201213. This contains information for the financial year 2012/13 on the data and methodology used and includes payments from both the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and Legal Aid Agency (LAA).

Table 1 below contains LAA statistics for 2012-13 as per the published statistics, but covering criminal legal aid only, excluding non-criminal legal aid and CPS payments, with ranking from 1-50.

In relation to chambers, the Ministry of Justice does not hold the information that has been requested. The LAA does hold an address for each barrister but does not record as routine which chambers they work at as there is no legal or business requirement for it to do so, and each barrister can work for multiple chambers during their working life.

Table 1: