5. What is the Counsel General doing to improve access to free legal advice across Wales, following cuts to Citizens Advice? OQ61328

Thank you for your question. It is the UK Government’s responsibility to ensure that legal advice is available and affordable for those who need it. For our part, we have protected the £11 million single advice fund in the 2024-25 budget to help people from our most disadvantaged and marginalised communities, to enable them access the advice and support that they need.

Thank you. I'm really concerned about when they access benefits and things, as a lot of people in Wales are not actually accessing fully the benefits that they're entitled to and this is why Citizens Advice have a part to play. Figures reveal that over £2 billion is being left unclaimed in Wales. So, that money belongs to those people. Advicelink Cymru, with cost-of-living pressures over the last few years, have precipitated in people seeking help, but still this money goes unclaimed. I note the North Wales Community Law centre, established in 2022, provides a much-needed service to those in need of free legal advice. Do you agree with me that we need to be doing more—all Ministers and we, as politicians? If we have the information, we need to be finding these people, where this money is due to them, and ensuring that they receive it. Diolch.

Firstly, could I thank you? It's a very important question that you, actually, raise, and the point that you raise with regard to north Wales and the pathfinder project and so on. I think those are important, and I know I engaged with the previous Under-Secretary of State for Justice, Lord Bellamy, very much on the pathfinder; I and, in fact, the Member Jane Hutt, as Minister then, we engaged with a view to encouraging the extension of that project. We went up to north Wales to actually see how it operated, and I think we were successful in getting agreement from Lord Bellamy. I hope this is something that will now carry through to apply to south-east Wales as well.

What we can't make up for, of course, are the serious cuts that have taken place since 2010 with regard to legal aid. But can I say, one area—? You raised a very important point about benefits. There are billions of pounds of unclaimed benefits each year. I have always taken the view that one of the functions of the welfare agency and so on is that those unclaimed benefits should be going towards actually providing advice to ensure the maximum take-up of those benefits. Those funds are there; what happens is that they go back into central Government coffers, whereas, in actual fact, I think they should be used in order to ensure that there is appropriate take-up—that's what I would like to see happen.