Part of 2. Questions to the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution – in the Senedd at 2:35 pm on 9 February 2022.
Thank you for the question. There is no doubt that, the last decade, the legal aid cuts have had an absolute disastrous impact on our communities and have disenfranchised many of our Welsh citizens from access to justice. In terms of the review—the two reviews, of course—the one review is in respect of criminal legal aid, with Lord Bellamy. I, in fact, met with Lord Bellamy to discuss that; I again raised the issue of Lord Bellamy's proposals with regard to criminal legal aid, and, in particular, some of the recommendations that are being made on the need to properly fund to deal with the issue of some of the advice deserts that we actually have. And we're still awaiting a decision from UK Government as to what they intend with that.
As important, if not actually more important, is actually the civil justice review, that I believe Lord Wolfson is engaged with at the moment. And obviously, there are significant areas there of concern to us, which are with regard to socioeconomic issues and legal aid, and generally other areas with regard to civil justice access. So, we look forward to really seeing what the proposals are that will be forthcoming. Obviously, means testing is relevant in both criminal legal aid and indeed in civil legal aid. As things stand at the moment, though, in terms of the massive cuts that there have been to legal aid, and the impact on our communities, an important lifeline is, of course, the single advice fund that the Minister for Social Justice is responsible for, and which has helped in the region of 250,000 cases for 130,000 Welsh citizens over the past couple of years.