Dr. Stoate:  To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how much was spent on legal aid in each of the last 10 years  (a) in cash terms and  (b) as a proportion of annual total public expenditure.

Maria Eagle: Table 1 as follows shows legal aid cash expenditure in each of the last 10 years. Table 2 as follows shows that expenditure for both England and Wales and for Northern Ireland as a proportion of total managed expenditure. Legal aid in Scotland is a devolved matter, funded out of the Scottish block grant which also forms part of total managed expenditure.

When compared to other main domestic areas of public spending, legal aid has been one of the fastest growing areas of public sector spending over the past years. For example, the average annual real-terms growth of legal aid over the past 25 years to 2006-07 was 5.7 per cent. This compares with 4.4 per cent. for social care and protection; 4.2 per cent. for public order and safety; 4.1 per cent. for health and 1.9 per cent. for education.

Table 1

Table 2

Dr. Stoate: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what assessment his Department has made of the impact of the new legal aid fee scheme on the number of legal practices undertaking criminal legal aid work.

Maria Eagle: Reforms to criminal legal aid were introduced on 14 January 2008 and included the introduction of fixed fees for police station work. Prior to the introduction of these reforms a national re-tender of the General Criminal Contract, which provides access to legal aid work for providers, took place in October last year.

Of those firms that already held a contract, 2,295 re-tendered, while a further 90 applications were received from new providers. In total there has been a reduction of only 5 per cent. in the number of providers delivering Criminal Legal Aid work under the new contract, which also came into effect on 14 January. This has had no impact on the accessibility of legal advice to clients in criminal legal aid cases.