HC Deb 09 February 2000 vol 344 cc223-4W
Mr. Burnett

To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what was the expenditure on legal aid for personal injury cases in (a) 1993–94, (b) 1994–95, (c) 1995–96, (d) 1996–97, (e) 1997–98 and (f) 1998–99 and for the same years in relation to legal aid for personal injury cases; (i) what amount of contributions to the Legal Aid Fund was paid or repaid by legally aided litigants, (ii) how much of this expenditure on legal aid for personal injury cases in the above years was value added tax and (iii) what is his Department's estimate of the benefits, recovery and savings by virtue of cases won by litigants in personal injury cases who had the benefit of legal aid for the years requested. [108791]

Mr. Lock

Excluding advice and assistance expenditure on cases completed in each year was as follows:

£ million
Net Gross Contributions from legally aided litigants
(a) 1993–94 38.0 155.3 1.3
(b) 1994–95 44.4 190.1 1.5
(c) 1995–96 55.2 239.6 1.7
(d) 1996–97 61.8 274.2 1.9
(e) 1997–98 65.6 1307.7 12.3
(f) 1998–99 2— 335.2
1 CIS was installed during 1997–98 in the Board's Nottingham and Chester offices. Because of this the figures for 1997–98 are incomplete and do not include data for five months (Nottingham) and six weeks (Chester)
2 I am unable, at present, to provide net figures for 1998–99 due to the differences in data collection between the Legal Aid Board's former computer system and its current Corporate Information System (CIS)

I am also unable to provide details of VAT because not all the Board's payment systems record it as a separate item. Some disbursements are registered for VAT and others are unregistered.

It is not possible to estimate the benefits, recovery and savings to litigants by virtue of cases won in personal injury cases. Neither is it possible to estimate the benefit to public funds. Although the Compensation Recovery Unit of the Department of Social Security (CRU) will seek to recover any state benefit from the amount of damages paid, the CRU does not record whether monies recovered were in relation to a case supported by legal aid throughout, partially supported by legal aid or financed in another manner, eg with the support of a trade union.