§ Lord Lester of Herne Hillasked Her Majesty's Government:
What is the total number of asylum cases in which applications have been made to the Legal Services Commission for an extension of legal aid beyond five hours; and how many of those applications have been successful in obtaining such an extension.[HL2550]
4WA
§ The Parliamentary Under Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs (Lord Filkin)The five-hour threshold will apply, throughout England and Wales, from 1 May 2004. As of 1 March 2004 a transitional threshold of seven hours was applied to immigration and asylum work provided by suppliers in London. In the first four weeks since the introduction of this policy, the Legal Services Commission dealt with 1,348 applications for extensions to the threshold; 937 extension requests related to controlled legal representation and 411 related to legal help. These figures cannot be split between immigration and asylum work. The total number of extension requests granted, part-granted, refused for lack of full documentation or rejected in full for the period is as follows:
Controlled Legal Representation
- Granted: 272
- Granted in part: 397
- Refused: 117
- Rejected: 151
Legal Help
- Granted: 114
- Granted in part: 156
- Refused: 60
- Rejected: 81