Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many cases where legal aid was obtained to appeal against requests for release of the costs of legal aid to be made public remain not concluded since 2019.

The requested information is not centrally held.

It is unclear what types of ‘appeal’ are being referred to. It has been interpreted to be a reference to appeals to the General Regulatory Chamber against decisions under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to release information relating to legal aid expenditure.

Such appeals are not within the scope of legal aid funding in accordance with Schedule 1, Part 1 of the Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012. To the extent that legal aid for these appeals may be granted under the provision for Exceptional Case Funding they would be recorded as ‘miscellaneous’ cases on the Legal Aid Agency’s database.