I have received notice from the Minister of Justice that she wishes to make a statement.

With your permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a statement on the steps that I am taking to improve access to justice. I do so because I believe that there is an opportunity to reshape how justice is delivered in future in order to ensure a fairer system that is more proportionate and responsive. There has been keen interest in the access to justice programme. I understand and welcome that interest.

How we support access to justice can and does shape lives, yet justice rarely gets the attention and funding it deserves. People encounter the justice system when they face challenges: when they are victims of crime; when they are experiencing trauma; when they are dealing with physical and emotional injury; or when they are managing changes to their financial and personal circumstances and their family life. How access to justice is supported can impact on how people manage and respond to those challenges, helping to determine their life outcomes, the support that they need in the future and how they live and engage with society. How we provide information, support and representation can be critical to ensuring that voices are heard, rights are exercised and protections are secured. It can be critical to ensuring that inequities can be challenged and that decision makers and others are held to account. It can help to determine the longer-term costs of public services such as policing, prisons, benefits and health and support services.

(Madam Principal Deputy Speaker in the Chair)

It is with that in mind that I commissioned the reform programme, enabling access to justice. I want to be sure that we meet the needs of citizens appropriately and that the system is effective in helping people navigate life’s challenges. I am also taking action because we need to ensure that the system is cost-effective and sufficiently transparent. The Public Accounts Committee has had concerns over clarity around legal aid spend. I share those concerns. I am also concerned about increasing financial pressures.

In commissioning the programme, I asked a number of questions. Is the justice system meeting the needs of modern society? Is it protecting the vulnerable? Are we providing some services at the expense of other, more valuable, actions? Are we managing our resources well? Is the system proportionate, viable, sustainable and transparent? Are behaviours and procedures engendering delay? Do we have sufficient assurance on quality? Can we measure the added value of the supports that we are providing?

I asked whether justice is being served. To answer those questions, I have taken time to listen and learn from what those using the system tell us about their experience and what those supporting it tell us about the challenges. I am grateful to everyone who shared their experience, particularly those who took the time to respond to the foundational review of civil legal aid, the fundamental review of criminal legal aid and the priority-setting exercise for victims of domestic abuse, which I jointly commissioned with the Commissioner Designate for Victims of Crime.

I take this opportunity to record my thanks to Geraldine Hanna, His Honour Judge Burgess and the contributing academics, practitioners and voluntary-sector organisations for their commitment to improving access to justice. In particular, I thank the applicants, defendants, victims and witnesses who took the time to share their experience so that we can improve the system for others. I know that, for some, sharing their experience will have been difficult, but it has been invaluable.

What I heard has been, in turn, enlightening, reassuring and disheartening, but it has also been motivating. It is clear that we have a strong foundation on which to build, but it is equally clear that remodelling is required. Evidence has reinforced my long-held view that we have much to laud. We have a strong, independent judiciary, a capable legal profession, hard-working staff in the Northern Ireland Courts and Tribunals Service (NICTS) and committed voluntary-sector staff, all of whom are dedicated to ensuring that justice is protected and delivered. Good practice and high-quality services are already in place, but changes are required. Society has evolved. Needs and expectations have changed. Technology is presenting opportunities to deliver services differently, in a way that better meets the needs of users, is more efficient for practitioners and delivers better outcomes at a lower cost. Different approaches can allow disputes to be resolved more quickly and more effectively, and users want more options. They want greater self-efficacy and to be better informed. They want to engage with the system differently.

The nature of the support provided also needs to change. Our understanding of the impact of trauma and adversity is constantly improving, as is our understanding of how such impacts can be mitigated. We now better understand the effects of the adversarial court process. The justice system needs to evolve to reflect that learning in order to ensure that delivery models are tailored to need, that the right supports are available for the right people at the right time and that the system reduces, rather than increases, trauma and stress.

Delivery also needs to align with resources. My Department has been consistently underfunded, and pressure on resources is increasing. As I said previously, £114 million was paid to legal professionals in 2023-24: the highest amount in the history of legal aid. We are already on track to meet that spend again this year, having secured additional funding in the October monitoring round. By way of comparison, however, the opening budget for legal aid when I first took up office in January 2020, which was for the year 2019-2020, was £76·9 million, and we then received in-year funding to raise that to £81·5 million.

Legal aid, like other aspects of the justice system, is demand-led. For example, work to increase the throughput of the courts in order to speed up justice will lead to increasing costs associated with legal aid. It also has to be acknowledged that there is increasing demand right across the justice system, reflecting the fact that, all too often, we are the provider of last resort. I therefore need additional funds to ensure that I can properly protect citizens, ensure that the vulnerable are not at risk and adequately resource police, prisons and justice delivery, not in spite of the pressures facing other Departments but because of them.

Delivery models also need to be refined to reflect our financial reality, however. I am cognisant of the need to examine, first, how we use our resources to ensure that delivery models are proportionate and as inexpensive as possible; secondly, why pressures and spend are increasing; thirdly, the benefits accruing from that spend and whether the intended effects are being achieved; and, fourthly, whether having different delivery models might generate better, quicker outcomes.

Given the foundational nature of those reviews, I have sought to revisit what should be the first principle of access to justice and ask whether we are protecting the most vulnerable and whether advice and representation are being provided to those who cannot navigate the system alone and do not have the means to afford advice and representation.

Changes are also required to ensure the long-term viability of the system. Fair, proportionate remuneration is critical to the continued availability of quality legal advice and high-standard representation and to ensuring that justice is served. Remuneration is only one part of how we nurture and attract talent, but it is an important part, and it is clear that fees need to be reset. I have asked questions about that, and I have been listening to and reflecting on what I have heard. The programme that I am announcing today represents the best opportunity to ensure that we effectively meet the needs of our citizens and that the system is sustainable. It represents an opportunity to reset justice delivery for a generation.

To do that, I propose to progress reform in five key areas, namely improving access to justice; ensuring appropriate quality services; ensuring value; managing public funds; and oversight. I will talk a bit more about my plans in each area, starting with improving access to justice.

Many who have sought to navigate the justice system will have had a positive experience, but others have experienced difficulty. Despite the significant and increasing spend on legal aid, some have, disappointingly, found that financial constraints remain a barrier to justice. Our current eligibility tests do not necessarily ensure protection for the most vulnerable: women, children, victims of abuse and those with a disability. In addition, rules governing eligibility are not easily understood. I want to address that. I want to ensure that legal aid delivers on that first principle of protecting the most vulnerable, so I plan to introduce fairer, simpler eligibility rules that focus resource on the greatest need and the greatest risk of harm. Of course, increasing eligibility comes with a responsibility to ensure that we live within our means. We simply do not have the resources to fund every case, however deserving. Neither can we afford to allow the spend to increase exponentially; the Justice budget certainly will not.

I also want to ensure that access to justice and the quality of service are not dependent on whether you have substantial means or whether you qualify for legal aid. A wider range of funding options is available in other jurisdictions. I will explore the introduction of private financing to support wider access to justice for individuals and other mechanisms that might aid public interest and strategic litigation. That will not only enhance access to justice by increasing the options available but increase choice for the individual. I also want to incentivise early resolution to ensure that process aids efficiency and that form follows function. The Criminal Justice Board is already progressing work to reduce unnecessary delay and enable structured early engagement. Through that programme, I will seek to ensure that remuneration structures support those objectives and that procedures reduce unnecessary delay, encourage early resolution and aid transparency. That includes providing better, clearer information to demystify the courts and building evidence of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms so that citizens have an informed choice.

Remedy does and should extend beyond the formal institutions of the legal system. The needs of those who use the system can often extend beyond advice and representation. Some who encounter the justice system have experienced trauma, have multiple and often complex needs and require a range of supports. There are also areas in which it is difficult to get expert advice. That advice is critical to effective participation and to equal treatment before the law. Therefore, I want to look at opportunities to provide specialist tailored supports at the point of entry and to test different delivery models, including contracting, so that users have cohesive services. I plan to focus initially on specific areas and vulnerable groups where there is an immediate need, such as victims of domestic abuse, young people, people in housing distress and asylum and immigration. However, there is potential to extend into other areas. I want to ensure that there is quality service provision through continuous and accelerating improvement. Quality service is also about confidence. It is about assuring those using the service about the advice and representation that they receive and assuring the wider community that publicly funded services provide value for money. Regulatory measures are already in place, but I want to work with the legal professions and the Minister of Finance to examine whether there are any areas of the framework that might be enhanced to add further confidence.

There is also a need to look at how quality service is rewarded. As I mentioned, fair, proportionate remuneration is essential to an effective justice system. I will initiate a root-and-branch review of remuneration in order to examine what work we are asking practitioners to undertake, the added value and the fees that should attach. We have already made good progress through the work that has been undertaken by Judge Burgess and through evidence from other sources, but I plan to establish a reference group to consider how we can further enhance that evidence base.

I am also persuaded that there is a case for a more immediate increase to fees, and I will take the necessary steps to introduce an uplift at pace. I am further persuaded that that uplift should apply across criminal and civil and family cases. Much has been said recently about the need to increase the fees that are payable for criminal legal aid, but there is also a case for increasing fees for advice and representation in civil and family cases. One of the reasons why I wanted to take that holistic approach was to ensure that issues are not considered in isolation to the detriment of other areas and to ensure fairness across the board.

Any uplift will, of course, be subject to affordability. It must also be acknowledged that a robust and enduring profession is not solely contingent on fees. There must be a proactive approach to succession planning. Diversity must be promoted and supported. There is a significant role for the profession in ensuring that training models build capacity, support inclusivity and nurture talent. I will also consider what steps I can take to increase viability and to ensure that those who provide public legal services are representative of society, initially by progressing extended rights of audience to increase capacity and by considering whether interim payments might aid the financial viability of smaller firms and career progression for women and younger members of the profession.

Ensuring value also bears on our responsibilities as legislators to ensure that resources are used to best effect. Through the reform programme, I will take steps to improve how we manage public funds. I want to look again at the scope of legal aid provision and review merits testing so that I can provide assurances to the House and to those whom we represent that funds are being used to support the most vulnerable. I want to ensure that resources are expended where there is a clear tangible value to the individual and to society. I also want to ensure that the process for making that assessment is simple and clear and allows us to effectively manage public expenditure.

Public funding should not displace private funding, so I want to be able to provide assurances in that regard. I will take steps to ensure that those who can afford to contribute to their legal costs do so. I will also ensure that the assessment system is fair and that mechanisms for appealing funding decisions are accessible and robust. I have always been clear in my view that legal aid is part of our welfare system. Contributions should be sought only from those who can truly afford it. Equally, public funds are not unlimited, nor should they be used to engender delay in the system, particularly where that would be at the expense of supporting others and making better use of public resources more generally. I will examine the certification process in order to ensure that the continued availability of legal aid is not at the expense of fair and judicious management of resources.

I will also take steps to ensure clarity on how we use resources. The Legal Services Agency (LSA) has no role in the assessment of around £30 million of legal aid expenditure per annum. That spend is instead assessed by the taxing master. I have every faith that the taxing master delivers their function independently, but the system in which the master operates means that we are unsighted on the detail of that line of expenditure, which is increasing. Between 2015-16 and 2018-19, taxed expenditure for civil legal services was consistently in the region of £20 million per annum. By 2023-24, costs had risen to £37·7 million. I know that all Members will agree that we need to understand why. We need transparency. I will therefore take steps to ensure that all legal aid expenditure comes within the purview of the departmental accounting officer in line with standard practice for managing public funds. I propose to progress that work on a phased basis, starting with High Court bail.

Finally, I will take steps to improve assurance on access to justice. MLA colleagues will be aware of the fact that there is no universally accepted definition of the term "access to justice". While there is a general sense that the system should facilitate the right to a fair trial, there are no overarching principles governing the operation of the system, how and when different categories of dispute should be resolved or how resources should be focused. The absence of that definition undoubtedly inhibits assessment of effectiveness. I want to measure, challenge and test what we do. I plan to look at the existing statutory framework for review in order to develop a strategy detailing the principles under which the system should operate and to improve management information on those who use and deliver services. I believe that articulating clear overarching principles and enhancing available data will make it easier for us to assess how we are doing, how well we are using resources and how well citizens and justice are being served.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker, I am conscious that I have covered a lot of ground, and I thank you for your attention and Members for theirs. The programme is ambitious and wide-ranging, but it is right to be ambitious when, as I said at the outset, so much is at stake for the public purse, for society and for individuals and their families. I do not propose changes lightly, and I do not underestimate the work involved. The programme is necessarily multi-year, and the pace of delivery will be contingent on resource and available funding. However, my aim is to make the system more sustainable, and I recognise that achieving that may mean upfront investment.

Of course, we need to make sure that we invest at the right time and examine issues in the right order. I will shortly consult on the programme implementation plan, which the Committee will have an opportunity to consider this week, to ensure that the proposed sequencing is right and that it properly takes account of interconnectivities. Nevertheless, I intend to move at pace. We do not have the luxury of time if we are to deliver the system that our citizens deserve. Each set of proposals will require detailed consultation and supporting legislative and administrative frameworks to be put in place. We cannot delay the realisation of benefits. Delivery will also be contingent on collaboration and cooperation with Executive colleagues, the Justice Committee, the legal profession and community and voluntary sector partners. I trust that you and they are as committed as I am to enhancing access to justice. We have a tangible opportunity to reset the framework for justice delivery and ensure that we have a fairer, more accessible, proportionate, responsive and cost-effective system that places citizens at its heart. I commend the statement to the House.

I thank the Minister for her statement. She will know that I have been advocating at the Justice Committee for enhanced and improved access to justice. I broadly welcome the indication of intent in her statement. Will she provide detail about how she envisages that private financing will interact with the existing legal aid framework? When can we expect to see a detailed timeline for progressing the objectives that she laid out in her statement? Will she detail how much the uplift will be? Will she provide detail on the timelines, though I do not disregard the fact that the programme implementation plan is forthcoming?

Minister, there were several questions there. You should answer whichever questions feel appropriate.

Thank you. A timeline is set out in the plan, which will be circulated to the Committee. The Member will have the opportunity to discuss that with my officials on Thursday afternoon. The plan lays out the order in which we intend to do things and puts some indicative timings beside those things based on what is realistic for delivery.

Tom Burgess suggested that the uplift to fees for criminal legal aid should be around 16% in order to take account of inflation since the previous uplift. We looked at that suggestion and other evidence that was before us, and we accept that recommendation from Tom Burgess. However, we also believe that, in order to ensure fairness in the profession, that uplift should apply across criminal and civil legal aid.

I thank the Minister for her statement. It is important, and it will be good to get the delivery programme and timetable that she mentioned. My question follows on from her comments on Tom Burgess's report and the 16% uplift. It is good for that to be widened so that it applies across the legal aid profession, but the Minister will know the pressure that solicitors and others are under at the moment with fees and the delay of payments. Is there a timetable for the introduction of that interim payment?

Judge Burgess and I were very clear that the payment is "interim" in the sense that it is on the way to wider reform. It is not "interim" as in a staging post to a further uplift. I want to be clear about that. Tom Burgess is also very clear that that is what the interim payment refers to. It will have to be subject to the normal procurement process. There will have to be a business case that will go through the Department of Finance. Colleagues have already engaged with their Department of Finance colleagues on that. I want to move towards that expeditiously, because I recognise that there is a need to do so.

It is, of course, the Department's intention to pay legal aid as promptly as possible. I do not want to get into issues around delay and timings, because, as the Member realises, that is sub judice, and a case is currently before the courts. However, it is fair to say that a number of things that I have proposed this morning, including interim payments, would be a significant improvement over the current arrangements, under which a final payment is made for work done. That would improve cash flow, particularly for smaller businesses and those starting out in their career, as cash flow is, perhaps, the biggest challenge that they face.

I thank the Minister for her statement, which is certainly wide-ranging. Minister, you will be aware of the alarming findings of the 2023-24 victims' survey by the Commissioner Designate for Victims of Crime, with only 7% of crime victims having confidence in your justice system and 50% being dissatisfied with the Public Prosecution Service (PPS). The victims of crime want actions not just words. How confident are you that we will see real, positive change to improve victims' experiences? Given the lack of clarity in your statement on time frames, can you spell out a clearer time frame for those affirmative actions?

First, it is not my justice system; it is your justice system. It belongs to us all, and there is a duty on all of us to take all measures possible to enhance confidence in the system. One of the things in the statement is about statutory registration and the regulatory landscape. I will engage with the Department of Finance on regulation to ensure that there is robust and transparent regulation of the legal profession and to ensure that, where someone is contracted to provide a public service, as they are under legal aid, people can rely on the best support possible.

I mentioned in the speech that it is key to ensure that we do nothing in the legal aid system that engenders or rewards delay. We must create incentives in the legal aid system to speed up justice, and the Criminal Justice Board has looked at that over a number of months.

Finally, with respect to the timeline, I said that this was a multi-year programme. It will depend on the resources that we can get for its implementation. However, a timeline is being provided and an order for the progress that we intend to make set out for the Justice Committee. Once I have acknowledged the Committee's role, because I want to give it primacy in the scrutiny, I will launch that for wider consultation. All Members will have an opportunity to feed into it.

Thank you, Minister, for your statement. Has any analysis been undertaken of the comparison between legal aid assessed by the taxing master and that spent by PPS barristers on the same cases? Does the taxation system operate elsewhere on these islands?

The taxation system is poorly understood. There is a taxing master in Northern Ireland who sets the fees for the cases and, last year, controlled around £37·7 million of expenditure. In other parts of these islands, there are no taxing masters. For example, in England and Wales, the costs can either be assessed by costs officers and costs judges or submitted to the Legal Aid Agency. Regardless of who conducts the assessment, statutory fees are payable, so there is less discretion. In Scotland, the Auditor of the Court of Session has a role similar to that of the taxing master but effectively performs an appellate role, if there is a dispute between the Scottish Legal Aid Board and the Scottish equivalent to our people. In the Republic of Ireland, it is mainly based on standard fees.

The work to analyse, for example, the difference the taxing master can introduce has found that payment to junior counsel in criminal Court of Appeal cases is, on average, nine times greater than what their counterpart in the PPS would receive for the same case. The payment to senior counsel in criminal Court of Appeal cases is six times greater than what PPS counsel would receive. In addition, on average, junior and senior counsel are paid almost twice as much in the criminal Court of Appeal than they would receive for the corresponding Crown Court trial. There are discrepancies in the system that need to be resolved to create a true equality of arms between those acting for the defence and the prosecution.

The Minister will know that some of us have questioned legal aid's value for money, as well as the need to eradicate fraud and error and, importantly, to provide transparency, for some time. It was brought into stark contrast when nearly £150,000 was awarded to Gerry Adams through legal aid, but I would not ask the Minister to comment on that case. In the interests of transparency, when will the Minister begin to publish once again the list of top legal aid earners in Northern Ireland?

I appreciate the question, and I appreciate the Member not asking me to comment on individual awards under legal aid. However, I understand that, in that case, at least one of the awards was made by a judge rather than by the Legal Services Agency.

Publishing a list of barristers is something that we have done in the past to show who the top-ranking barristers are in terms of the receipt of legal aid. It is questionable how much light it shines, because we have to remember that the person who is actually in receipt of the legal aid is their client, not the barrister or the solicitor. That can create a bit of a skewed idea that, if somebody works in the legal aid sector, they may get higher levels of payment; somebody who declines to work on a legal aid basis would then get lower levels of payment but would not then be representing clients who are entitled to legal aid. I think that it is less straightforward than that.

The Member mentioned transparency. I have no issue with transparency, and it would be helpful if we were to get to the point again, when those figures are meaningful, where we can disaggregate the different levels of payment that people receive but also, importantly, how those payments are arrived at. In some ways, that is much more important than how much individual law firms earn. What they earn it for matters much more to me.

I thank the Minister for her statement on enabling access to justice. In order to improve access to justice for those who are in greatest need and at greatest risk, which includes our women, our children, victims of abuse and people with a disability, the Minister mentioned that she planned to introduce a simpler, fairer eligibility system. Could she throw some light on what that will entail?

Today, I have set out a road map to where we want to get to in the broad direction of travel. Each of the individual elements of this will be designed and brought forward for consultation, so there is work to be done on each element. However, to use a funnel analogy, we are conscious that the entrance to the funnel in Northern Ireland is small, so the number of people who are eligible for legal aid is small. However, once you are eligible, the merit test of what you use legal aid for is quite broad. In England and Wales, more people would be entitled to legal aid, so the funnel neck is much wider, but the number of cases that would reach the merit test, in terms of being of value, would be much smaller.

We recognise that there will be vulnerable people, particularly those fleeing domestic abuse, who would currently be ruled out of legal aid by the means test but may have good grounds for needing legal aid because, due to domestic abuse, they do not have access to the means that they ought to have. It is exactly those sorts of things that have driven us in the direction of looking at alternative provision. It is also why I mentioned not just the Bar and the Law Society but community and voluntary sector partners. For example, services such as Housing Rights, the Children's Law Centre and Women's Aid will often provide legal advice from fully qualified legal advisers, but they do that at the point of need and do it effectively. We want to make sure that, when we talk about access to justice, we include that within the confines of what we are trying to address.

Minister, thank you very much for your statement to the House. The proposed reforms are well intentioned and address critical issues in the justice system. However, their success depends on clearly defined goals, realistic financial planning, effective stakeholder engagement and phased implementation. Addressing these flaws may enhance the programme's credibility and its likelihood of achieving meaningful improvements.

Acknowledging the financial constraints across Departments, will the necessary finance be available for the strategy, and could private financing options create inequalities whereby wealthier individuals have better access to justice? With that in mind, does the Minister think that there will be pushback from the legal profession?

There are a number of questions in that. First, we have had regular ongoing contact with the legal profession. There will be parts of this that some parts of the profession like, and there will be parts of it that some parts of the profession do not like. That is the reality with any proposal for reform. We are trying to come at this not from the position of those who, if you like, earn their living through the legal aid system but from the position of those for whom legal aid is designed, namely those who are in need of legal advice.

We are here to provide a service, which is access to justice, and we need a thriving profession to be able to do that. I want to work with the legal profession to ensure that the reforms are practical and do not provide a barrier to people entering the profession. For example, we know that final payment has led to many women who enter the Bar not being paid for work that they have done: because the court was scheduled during a period of maternity leave they get paid nothing for all the preparatory work that they have done. Interim payments may help in that space. Other parts of what we are trying to do, for example early resolution and alternative dispute resolution, may take more cases away from the court, but we should all welcome that as it may speed things up and allow the courts to spend more time on more serious issues.

On access to funding for the programme, we will have to produce a business case. I believe that we can do so and that we have a robust argument. We will put that to the Department of Finance, as we do with all our business cases. Of course, dependent on the outcome, the project is scalable in that we can do the bits that we can afford whilst working on other pieces in the background until we get the resources for them. Overall, we need to ensure that the system is sustainable. The rapid increase that we have seen over the past five years is not sustainable, and the profession is saying that the profession is not sustainable. This is our opportunity to reset things.

I note the Minister's comments regarding the increasing spend on legal aid here and her concerns around the sustainability of that trajectory. Can the Minister clarify our spend per head on legal aid in Northern Ireland and how that compares with elsewhere on these islands?

In 2022-23, the average spend on legal aid per adult in Northern Ireland was £67. By comparison, the average spend per capita in England and Wales was £37; in Scotland, it was £26; and in the Republic of Ireland, it was £20.

Minister, further to John Blair's question, can you outline what proportion of the Northern Ireland population is currently eligible for legal aid? How does that compare with elsewhere on these islands?

It is important, as I tried to do earlier, to highlight the scope of legal aid and that how legal assistance is provided to citizens will vary across jurisdictions. On the basis of the available data for 2022-23, about 25% of the adult population in Northern Ireland is eligible for legal aid. The average spend on civil and family legal aid per adult is about £34. By comparison, 23% of the adult population in England and Wales is eligible for legal aid, with an average spend in civil and family legal aid of £19 per adult. Seventy per cent of the adult population in Scotland is eligible for legal aid, with an average spend in civil and family legal aid of £10 per adult. Fifty per cent of the adult population in Ireland is eligible for legal aid, with an average spend of £8 per adult. Therefore, as you can see, the eligibility can be widened considerably and it can still provide better value for money than we do in Northern Ireland.

Minister, although there is much in here that people will understand and sympathise with, there is some stuff to be concerned about too. Let us be transparent about your reform of the way that the taxing master works. I am not aware of any other situation in which the state can be on the other side of assessing the counter party's costs, which is, effectively what you are calling for here. The comparisons are usually not perfectly analogous. Will you, please, confirm that, in legacy cases, for example, we will not have a profound conflict of interests where the state is, effectively, assessing the costs of its counter parties? Why, in the interests of transparency, will you not publish the Burgess report?

There were two questions. On the first, when it comes to legacy specifically, separate arrangements are being considered by the Northern Ireland Office and Treasury. It is a UK Government policy, not a DOJ policy. Therefore, the legal support that will or will not be offered to people going through, for example, the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR) cases will not fall within the legal aid framework.

On the taxing master, what we are doing is not unique. We already have standardised fees, and, for example, in the appeal courts, around 80% of people opt to go through the Legal Services Agency because it is quicker to go through that than to go through the taxing master. The issue here is one of managing public money. There is a duty on me to ensure that there is transparency, openness and accountability.

The current rules around the way in which the taxing master works do not allow for that openness, accountability and transparency, and whatever we end up with at the end of the process has to achieve that end. It is an issue that the PAC raised and is therefore something that needs to be followed through on.

My reason for not publishing the Burgess report is that it was one of a number of inputs to the document that we are sending to the Committee, and I did not think that its consideration in isolation was the right process to follow. When my road map goes to the Committee, however, the supporting documentation will also go to it and will then be published in full.

I thank the Minister for her statement. Minister, you will be aware of concerns that have been expressed, particularly by those in the criminal legal professions about the viability of the service that they deliver. Will you outline to the House your Department's responsibility for the service's viability, particularly for the criminal legal professions?

Responsibility for the viability of the legal professions is a matter for many different people. Proper, proportionate remuneration is critical in order to ensure an enduring profession and effective access to justice, but it has to be acknowledged that a robust and enduring profession is not solely contingent on fees. Legal aid is only one income stream available to practitioners. Professional bodies have to ensure that there is a proactive approach taken to succession planning. They also have to ensure that their training models build capacity, support inclusivity and nurture talent. For example, many people do not want to operate as criminal solicitors, and that is because they find doing so difficult because of the amount of out-of-hours work and inconvenience involved compared with working for, say, a corporate legal body, where they may not have to work outside normal office hours. I will therefore consider what steps I can take to try to increase viability. Initially, I will consider extended rights of audience in the courts to increase capacity and then consider whether interim payments might aid financial viability, particularly, as I said, that of smaller firms, and career progression for women and younger members of the profession. Others also need to take action on those matters. I am aware, for example, that the Law Society is looking at making potential changes to its model for training young solicitors.

I thank the Minister for her statement and her answers thus far. Minister, do you consider the current regulatory framework for the legal professions to be adequate? If not, what steps will you take to address that?

Some other Members pointed to the reviews that have been undertaken, and a further report has been published on how clients viewed the legal services that they received. It has to be said that that report is a mixed bag and not entirely glowing in its output. The regulatory framework for the legal professions is not a matter for me as Justice Minister but a matter for the respective professional bodies, the Finance Minister and the Legal Services Oversight Commissioner. I want, however, to work with Minister Archibald, the Law Society and the Bar Council to see whether there are ways in which we can collectively increase confidence for service users. I am very clear that the standards of legal representation in Northern Ireland are high, and the vast majority of stakeholders reported that the services that they received were helpful, necessary and provided with care. I am concerned, however, that some expressed concerns about the ability to make an effective complaint about their representative when they need to. I am also keen to explore how the governance structures around legal aid can be used in combination with the vital roles of the Law Society, the Bar Council, the Department of Finance and the commissioner to increase confidence in the system.

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire as ucht a ráitis.

[Translation: I thank the Minister for her statement.]

Minister, on Monday 12 May 1997, Seán Brown was abducted and murdered by loyalist paramilitaries. Have you made any representations to the British Government on the legacy legislation, which is denying so many people, including the Brown family, access to justice?

My statement is about enabling access to justice through the legal aid system and its corollaries. It is not specific to individual cases. I have, however, had the opportunity to make representations to the Secretary of State about his plans, particularly on the ICRIR. I have been clear that I think that it needs to be replaced, not merely reformed. I have also been clear that, if they decide to do so, the Department of Justice will not stand in the way of any families wishing to avail themselves of its services or try to frustrate their processes. However, it is, I believe, a fundamentally flawed process, and the Secretary of State should go back to the drawing board, with the Stormont House Agreement, to which many Members signed up, as a starting point.

Thank you, Minister. What previous reviews have been undertaken of criminal legal aid remuneration levels, and what uplifts were agreed as a result?

Since the devolution of justice, the Department has, in line with legislation, kept the scheme under review. Reviews have led to nine amendments to supporting legal aid legislation, with the latest, in 2019, being to bring forward remuneration for referral hearings in the Crown Court. The proposal to uplift fees here is based on evidence in the various reports that are available and is designed to help to arrest the fall in numbers of solicitors and barristers taking on cases that are supported by legal aid.

The reform programme will, as part of its outworkings, necessitate the setting of new remuneration rates that will reflect the complex operating environment and the specialist skills needed in some cases. The current levels of remuneration for cases in the Crown Court were agreed in 2016, following discussions with stakeholders, including members of the Bar Council and the Law Society. That followed changes in 2015. Those discussions helped to identify where rates needed to be amended to reflect the complexity of cases that were then being brought forward. The Bar Council and the Law Society supported the Burgess review and provided detailed supporting evidence that has helped to shape the reform programme. Their input into delivering it will also be incredibly important, and I look forward to their continued engagement.

I thank the Minister for her comprehensive statement. One of the greatest barriers to accessing justice in Northern Ireland can be the use and abuse of the judicial review process, particularly when it comes to major capital schemes being taken forward by government. I can think of a number of schemes in my constituency that have been stalled through the courts as a result of easily accessible but vexatious judicial review claims. Has the Minister given any thought to reviewing the bar to be cleared by a member of the public in order to be granted leave to apply for a judicial review and getting legal aid for that process?

We are looking at a number of elements that would deal with some of those issues. First and foremost, access to justice allows the ordinary citizen to challenge the decision maker, and it is right and proper that they should be able to do so. In the case of what the Member describes as potentially vexatious applications, however, it is important that, in addition to a means test, there is a merit test: would a person take this case if they were paying for it themselves, or are they taking it solely because someone else — namely, the public purse — is picking up the bill? We intend to look at that carefully because, if we are to protect the most vulnerable, we need to make sure that our legal aid spend is targeted at the most vulnerable. We also need to make sure that we do not fall foul of our commitments under the Aarhus convention, which is environmental legislation that the Government have signed up to to ensure that the public have a right to challenge decision makers on environmental issues.

The introduction of private finance in anything is deeply problematic, but, in the concept of justice, it is perplexing. How far do you intend that to go? How will you ensure that people are not encouraged to pick profitable cases and disregard others when it comes to justice?

I hate to break it to the Member, but private finance is the standard approach in most civil cases. If I want to take a defamation case against somebody, I have to pay for that, unsurprisingly. If I were to win damages, I would cover my costs out of them. It is not unreasonable to expect somebody who wants to take a case and has the means to do so to pay. The purpose of legal aid is not to fund every exercise in the courts. It is to fund access to the courts for those who could not otherwise afford it, so it is not at all unusual that private finance options are available.

One of the principles of 'Managing Public Money' is that public money should not displace private money where private money is available. We need to be careful that that does not happen. For example, some people will automatically be allowed legal aid for their defence. They may be very wealthy people who could have paid for that themselves. If they are convicted, it is right that we should seek redress. When it comes to other options for private financing, we are not talking about bringing in companies that will run the process as a private enterprise. I was clear in saying that I wanted to ensure that people get the same quality of service whether they have means or gain access through legal aid. That has to be the baseline. There are certain mechanisms available to people in other parts of these islands that allow them to take on big corporations, for example. No win, no fee claims, for example, allow people to take on big corporations and win. We do not have that in Northern Ireland, so, unless you have the money to go up against those big corporations, you have no chance of ever seeing justice done.

That concludes questions on the statement.