Garden Court Chambers welcomes the first increase in civil legal aid rates since 1996. This is the first step towards rebuilding the civil legal aid sector. The increase is confined to housing and immigration cases, and both those sectors are in crisis, with fewer and fewer lawyers providing legal aid services. This increase may help to prevent further losses to the housing and immigration legal aid sector, and thus benefit those seeking their services: tenants facing possession proceedings, homeless households and asylum seekers. It is a necessary, immediate step.
The Law Society’s research shows that nearly half the population of England and Wales do not have a housing legal aid provider in their local authority (Housing – legal aid deserts | The Law Society). Legal aid work is loss-making for the majority of providers surveyed, all the housing providers were unable to break even and, on average, recover around half of the full costs of providing legal aid. The immediate costs of this lack of profitability include low levels of recruitment and retention and, ultimately, market exit. The number of civil legal aid providers in England and Wales has reduced by 19% in the last five years (Law Society & Frontier Economics Implications of research on the sustainability of civil legal aid).
Research into the availability of legal aid funded immigration advice has shown that the provision is not even adequate for first time adult asylum applications, that in many parts of England and Wales legal aid immigration advice depends heavily on one individual or a small number of people, and that there is a serious shortage of free and low cost advice available outside the scope of legal aid (No Access to Justice: how legal advice deserts fail refugees, migrants and our communities, Dr Jo Wilding, Refugee Action, 2022).
Civil legal aid benefits society. The Bar Council’s research The value of justice for all, evaluating the case for funding the free specialist legal advice sector (Munro & Preece, Access to Justice Foundation, Bar Council & Pragmatix Advisory, August 2024) found that, for every £1 spent on free specialist legal advice and its outcomes in 2023, there was a saving to the government of £2.71, (a saving of £908 million to the public purse for every 100,000 clients receiving free legal advice), plus the longer-term benefits of higher employment rates, improved health and well-being and reduced reliance on benefits.
Government must commit to sufficient funds so that civil legal aid services can be available throughout England and Wales, not just in the areas of housing and immigration law but through the range of civil legal aid services. We look forward to engaging in the consultation on increasing legal aid fees and to government action to create and maintain a sustainable and thriving legal aid service, which will benefit those receiving advice and representation, and have wider benefits for society as a whole.
Stephen Simblet KC, Joint Head of Garden Court Chambers, states:
“The very fact that this is the first increase in civil legal aid rates for nearly 30 years shows how stark the situation is in the civil justice system. There was a time when access to publicly funded legal advice and assistance was seen by all Governments as necessary social provision. It is only through the dedication and commitment of lawyers, that have taken on this work because of their own commitment to the law, that the system has not broken down completely. This small increase may go some way to acknowledging this vital work.”
