Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether she plans plans to review the Legal Aid regulations where (a) assistance has been received for a case and (b) several appeals are lodged with legal aid assistance to prevent the release of information via Freedom of Information legislation about the cost of such assistance.

Legal aid for proceedings within England and Wales is subject to the provisions of the Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO) and regulations made under that Act. The legislation places restrictions on the scope of services funded and the eligibility criteria which need to be satisfied before legal aid is granted.

Civil legal aid services relating to an appeal arising from or relating to a decision to release information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 are not within the scope of funded services. Legal aid may be available as exceptional case funding where failure to provide legal aid would breach or risk breaching an individual’s human rights or other enforceable legal rights. There are no plans to review the scope of legal aid in this area.

Applications for legal aid, including that provided as exceptional case funding, are subject to a merits test. This helps ensure that public funding is used responsibly and not spent on cases that are unlikely to succeed or are repeated without new grounds.