§ Ms KeebleTo ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs how much was paid out in(a) immigration and asylum legal aid and (b) total legal aid in (i) England and (ii) the East Midlands in each year since April 2000. [133180]
§ Mr. Lammy[holding answer 29 October 2003]: Legal aid payments are made by the Legal Services Commission, and for criminal legal aid in the higher courts, by the Court Service. Information about such payments will include work done outside the area and will also include payments to practitioners based outside the area. It is therefore not possible readily to identify separately payments relating to work done within a particular region. The figures given for the East Midlands are therefore estimates based on payments processed by the relevant Legal Services Commission Area Office and Court Service Office.
384WThe overall number of applications for fee exemption/remission for insolvency petitions since April 1998, by court and region, are provided in the following table.
Legal aid expenditure for immigration and asylum1 for the whole of England and Wales, compared to the East Midlands was as follows:
£ million England and Wales2 East Midlands 2000–01 81.1 2.1 2001–02 129.4 3.1 2002–03 176.2 4.4 Expenditure for all legal aid for the whole of England and Wales compared to the East Midlands was as follows:
£ million England and Wales2 East Midlands 2000–01 1,664.4 102.6 2001–02 1,716.9 103.5 2002–03 1,908.6 117.8 1 Expenditure for immigration and asylum are the latest estimates and may differ slightly from previous figures given. 2 Legal aid is administered nationally by the Legal Services Commission and the Court Service within England and Wales. In order to reduce the inaccuracies of regional estimates, payments made by offices within Wales have been included.