Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they plan to take to ensure that aspiring solicitors from low-income households have access to the funds necessary to complete the Solicitors Qualifying Exam, alongside any associated preparation or training courses.

The legal services sector in England and Wales is independent of Government, and as such, the Government does not have a role in setting or approving the framework for admission into the legal profession.

In March 2018, the Legal Services Board (LSB) approved a rule change application made by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA). This application laid out a framework upon which the SRA could seek to introduce new requirements for trainee solicitors to pass a centralised Solicitors Qualifying Exam before being admitted into the profession. However, the application only established the framework. The SRA will need to submit another rule change application to LSB in order to implement it.

In its March 2018 decision notice, the LSB set out the substantive issues that it had not been able to fully assess and would need to evaluate before it approved any further application from the SRA seeking to implementing the framework. This included assessing the full costs of the Solicitors Qualifying Exam and accessibility of assessments.