Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of legal aid provision in (a) Stockport and (b) Greater Manchester.

The Legal Aid Agency (LAA) is responsible for commissioning legal aid services in England and Wales. At a national level, the LAA monitors capacity across its legal aid contracts on an ongoing basis and, where demand is greater than the available supply, takes action to secure additional provision to ensure the continuity of legal aid-funded services.

The commissioning and monitoring of civil legal aid services are done by Procurement Area or Access Point, with Procurement Areas differing for different categories of law. The commissioning standard is to have at least one provider in each civil category per Procurement Area, outside Family Law where the minimum is five. Additionally, legal advice on a range of civil matters including housing, debt, discrimination and education is available, wherever people are, through the Civil Legal Advice telephone service.

The commissioning and monitoring of criminal legal aid services are undertaken at a national level. However, the LAA takes steps to ensure there is adequate coverage on each of its duty solicitor schemes. Provision under the duty solicitor scheme is demand led and so there may be variations in numbers across each local rota.

Information about the number of legal aid providers contracted to provide services are published as part of the LAA’s statistics [see tables 9.1-9.8]. These statistics are used by the LAA as management information to monitor the capacity of legal aid services over time, in different areas of law and different regions of England Wales.

The LAA is satisfied that there is adequate provision of services in Stockport and Greater Manchester across all categories of legal aid, including under the relevant duty solicitor schemes operating in the area.