Questioning the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution this week, North Wales MS, Shadow Minister for Social Justice and Shadow Counsel General Mark Isherwood has highlighted the extra £135 million announced by the UK Government to be spent on legal aid, and the extra £200 million each year to speed up the Courts system, and asked how the Welsh Government is engaging with the UK Ministry of Justice regarding this.
Mr Isherwood, who has made repeated calls for the Welsh Government to engage positively with the UK Government on this agenda, raised the matter again in last Wednesday’s meeting of the Welsh Parliament.
Questioning the Counsel General he said:
“What engagement have you had with the UK Ministry of Justice regarding their 15th March announcement that ‘an extra £135 million will be spent on the legal aid sector every year to match the recommendations made by an independent review of the system, overseen by Sir Christopher Bellamy QC, which, added to the extra £200 million each year to speed up the courts system, will bring total taxpayer funding for criminal defence to £1.2 billion a year’?
In his response, the Minister welcomed the removal of means testing.
Mr Isherwood added:
“How do you respond to the inclusion, within March's UK Ministry of Justice announcement, of funding to: ensure that professionals are better paid for the work they actually carry out, and help free up capacity in courts; boost pay for lawyers representing suspects in police stations; give more people the opportunity to forge a career in criminal law, whatever their background; open access to civil legal aid for around 2 million more people in Wales and England, and remove the means test altogether for some applicants; particularly benefit domestic abuse victims who are disputing house ownership; remove the financial cap on eligibility for Crown Court defendants; provide 3.5 million more people in Wales and England with access to criminal legal aid at the magistrates' court; and, for the first time ever, provide free legal representation for all under-18s and for parents challenging doctors over the withdrawal of their child's life support, and free legal help for families at inquests where there's been a potential breach of human rights?”
Mr Isherwood also asked how the Welsh Government is engaging with UK Government efforts to clear the court backlog.
“The court backlog was higher in the last year of the UK Labour Government than it was under the UK Conservative Government before the start of the pandemic.
“How have you engaged positively with the UK Government's 21st April announcement that Courts will continue working at full capacity for a second year to speed up justice for victims, with the cap on sitting days lifted for another year? This is part of a raft of measures to cut backlogs in the Courts, where the investment will mean more trials can take place, delivering swifter justice and reducing the backlog of cases which rose significantly during the pandemic; where the same decision last year meant that nearly 17,000 more days were sat in the Crown Court than in the year prior to the pandemic; and this sits alongside the extension of 30 Nightingale Courts until March 2023, digital hearings, and the significantly increased investment for criminal legal aid.”