To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will make an assessment of the implications for his policies of the judgment in the case of the Law Society of England and Wales v The Lord Chancellor of 31 January 2024.
Answered on
23 February 2024
While the claimants in the case being referred to were successful on specific narrow grounds, the majority of their claims were rejected by the Court. We are carefully considering the judgment and will set out further detail on our response in due course.
We recently announced a consultation that would lead to an additional £21 million being invested in the criminal legal aid solicitor profession, bringing the overall increase from 9% to 11%. We expect our existing reforms to increase spending on criminal legal aid by up to £141 million a year.