§ Mr. HancockTo ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department how much money has been spent on legal aid for asylum seekers in each of the last three years; how much of this was for the initial application; how much of this was for fighting appeals; how many asylum seekers were involved in legal aid procedures in both categories; and if she will make a statement. [46673]
§ Ms Rosie WintertonThe Legal Services Commission is not able to provide the information in the format requested. The commission is able to provide figures relating to legal aid for all immigration and asylum work from April 1999.
Total payments for all immigration and asylum advice, assistance and representation are as follows:
Financial year Expenditure(£ million) 1999–2000 61.4 2000–01 88.3 2001–021 129.7 1 The figures provided for 2001–02 are provisional estimates The commission's systems do not record expenditure according to the stage a case has reached, so figures cannot be provided for expenditure on initial applications or fighting appeals. Neither can figures be split between 69W asylum immigration work and non-asylum immigration work. However, it is known that asylum currently accounts for over 90 per cent. of expenditure in the immigration and asylum category.
Since August 2000, the commission has recorded the number of matters started in asylum immigration as distinct from non-asylum immigration. In the 18 month period from August 2000 to January 2002 132,800 asylum matters were started. Each matter is an act of assistance not a client assisted so the figure is not necessarily reflective of the number of individuals involved.
§ Mr. SoamesTo ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what the costs have been for legal aid granted to the Afghans who landed at Stansted in February 2000 in a hijacked aircraft; and what the other costs have been of the judicial and quasi-judicial proceedings concerning their cases. [52771]
§ Ms Rosie WintertonIt is not possible to provide the information requested. For legal aid, a number of claims have yet to be determined and therefore it is not possible at this stage to say what the total costs have been. Nor is it possible to provide the costs for the judicial proceedings. That information, which will include among other things, judicial costs; the costs to the prosecution, witnesses and juror expenses, is not held centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate costs.