Clifton-Brown: LASPO could prove to be an extinction event
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) should consider changing its name to “the Ministry of Justice (for Certain People)” if it does not take sustainability of the legal aid market more seriously, MPs have said.
They called on the department to help government ministers set legal aid fees by “routinely reviewing profitability and sustainability for all types of legal aid”.
In a highly critical progress report on the MoJ, the House of Commons public accounts committee (PAC) said it was “unconvinced” that the department had “done enough to ensure the future sustainability of the legal aid market”.
The PAC said it had previously raised concerns in its report Value for money from legal aid, published under the previous government in May 2024, that while the MoJ was “undertaking large scale reviews of both criminal and civil legal aid it had not put in place mechanisms to routinely review the profitability of legal aid fees”.
The MoJ had since committed to increasing legal aid fees for housing and immigration, but they had not yet been implemented.
“Further, fees for other areas of civil legal aid, which have not increased since 1996, remain under review. Even after these commitments, organisations such as the Law Society remain concerned that these uplifts are insufficient to tackle the long-term sustainability of the market.”
The Legal Aid Agency (LAA) was “exploring what it can do to reduce the administrative burdens on providers and has made entry into the market for providers easier”.
“While we accept MoJ’s argument that setting legal aid fees is a decision for ministers, regular reviews of profitability and sustainability would provide ministers with the information they need to make informed decisions.”
In its Ministry of Justice follow-up: Autumn 2025 report, published today, the PAC said it was not satisfied that the MoJ and LAA were “doing enough to ensure that people eligible for legal aid can access it, particularly those who are digitally excluded”.
“Significant gaps” in face-to-face legal provision still existed in areas of the country, in particular for housing and debt advice.
MPs were disappointed that neither the MoJ nor LAA could demonstrate an improved understanding of whether the digitally excluded were able to access help. They need to do more on this.
More than 10 years since the LASPO legal aid reforms, MPs said the MoJ had “still not demonstrated a sufficient understanding of the additional costs”, particularly the impact of litigants in person (LiPs) – its “continued failure to demonstrate meaningful progress” was disappointing.
Given “continued widespread concern” about the impact of the increased number of LiPs on courts, MPs said they were “also dissatisfied with progress MoJ has made on improving its data to ensure it can get a more accurate understanding of the problem”.
The PAC recommended that the MoJ explain the results of and its response to its survey of local authorities about “the effects of shunting costs to other government departments”, and any further investigations it planned, for example on whether a lack of early advice created additional costs for areas such as healthcare.
The MoJ should also explain the impact of the increase in LiPs on the courts, including “any additional time and cost as a result”, and how it will improve the data it bases its analysis on.
The PAC recommended too that the MoJ and LAA set out the lessons learned from the cyberattack on the LAA in December 2024, and “how and when it plans to share these lessons with other government departments”.
The MoJ should include whether it had sufficient funding to address “the key risks identified from the review of its systems”.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, chair of the PAC, said the LASPO reforms were “at serious risk of going down in history as an extinction event for the entitlement to access to legal advice in large parts of the country”.
He went on: “Our report finds government remaining stubbornly uninterested in whether this is the case, but it must now wake up on this subject. If it refuses to, the Ministry of Justice should, frankly, consider changing its name to the Ministry of Justice (for Certain People).
“This might be more appropriate for a nation without a sustainable solution in the long-term to provide legal aid to the digitally excluded quarter of the population who need it most.”
Along with legal aid, the PAC report covered MoJ shortcomings with HMP Dartmoor, empty since 2024 because of high levels of radon gas but where it pays £4m a year in rent, rates and security.
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