Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of increasing legal aid fees for written work by 25 per cent.
The criminal legal aid independent review recommended that funding for criminal legal aid should be increased overall for both solicitors and barristers as soon as possible to an annual level, in a steady state, of at least 15% above present levels.
On 20 July, the Government published its interim response and laid a statutory instrument to implement a 15% uplift to most fee schemes, which will come into force for new representation orders from 30 September 2022. Criminal legal aid practitioners will start to receive the pay increase from October 2022 onwards for their work on these cases. The increases we are implementing from 30 September 2022 are on top of the £74m we have invested in criminal legal aid over the last 4 years.
Following discussions with the Bar Council, Criminal Bar Association and the Law Society the MoJ have put forward a range of proposals, including funding for existing cases. These include:
My officials are currently developing our detailed response to our consultation following the criminal legal aid independent review, which includes longer term reform of the fee schemes and how payment for written work is claimed so that they properly reflect the way legal professionals work today. We will outline next steps in our full response to the consultation, which we expect to publish later this year. This will also include our proposals to: