§ Lord Gainfordasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they have final expenditure figures for legal aid for 1993–94.
§ The Lord Chancellor (Lord Mackay of Clashfern)Final figures are not yet available. However, provisional outturn figures show that the net cost of legal aid in 1993–94 was £1,210 million compared to a provision of £1,283 million. This represents an increase of £117 million on the previous year. Of the £73 million underspend against provision in 1993–94, £39 million related to criminal legal aid where the number of bills paid fell short of expectations, reflecting the fall in business in the criminal courts. Most of the remaining shortfall, £27 million, related to civil legal aid. Payments to the legal aid fund, particularly in respect of costs and damages recovered, amounted to £21 million more than anticipated, which we believe is mainly because of speedier settlements resulting from the transfer of business from the High Court to the county court following from the civil justice review. In addition, the number of civil bills paid were some 3 per cent. lower than expected, resulting in a reduction in expenditure of around £6 million. The remainder of the shortfall was due to green form expenditure being some 2 per cent. lower than estimated and the number of ABWOR bills being some 30 per cent. lower than expected, resulting in shortfalls in expenditure of £3 million and £4 million respectively.