§ Mr. Fieldasked the Attorney-General what is the estimated cost of extending legal aid to parents in care cases; and how that estimate is calculated.
The Solicitor-GeneralThe Department of Health and Social Security joint working party on costing the operation of unimplemented provisions of the Children Act 1975 estimated that the cost would be about £800,000 to £870,000 at November 1979 prices: about £1 million at today's prices. Those sums were calculated by multiplying the estimated price of each case, about £180, by the number of likely grants of legal aid, about 4,400 to 4,800.