Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 03 November 2021
Jamie Greene raised a few points there. I will respond to the point about the incident that took place at the weekend. The Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service and the Edinburgh Bar Association issued a joint statement following the incident, and the SCTS has confirmed that
“Solicitors who are attending court to take instructions, provide advice and represent their clients are essential”
to court business
“and full access has been, and will continue to be, provided to court buildings and their clients held in custody.”
Ultimately, the matters that have been raised are for the independent judiciary and the courts, not for the Scottish ministers.
Jamie Greene will know and understand that the legal aid budget is demand led. Expenditure is regularly above the budget and sometimes below it. Last year was an extraordinary year and spend was below budget, but we fully expect spend to be above budget next year.
Substantial investment, in funding terms, has been put into legal aid, which I think represents the fact that the Government wants to invest in, and is interested in supporting, legal aid practitioners. If the Presiding Officer allows me, I will detail those investments. There has been an across-the-board increase in fees, which amounts to 13.6 per cent over three years; £1 million to support the cost of traineeships to address the capacity issues that were raised with me; and £9 million in direct Covid resilience and recovery funding to support legal aid solicitors. That total package of £20 million is in the process of being completely delivered. On top of that, a fee reform package on the criminal side is not yet progressed, but fee reforms will provide an increase of 16.6 per cent; on top of that again, the COP26 package is worth up to £3.5 million.
I think that that level of funding speaks for itself. It shows that the Government is listening and wants to respond to legal aid practitioners, and that we value and are investing in their work. In the case of the COP26 package, the Conservative-led UK Government will only cover £1.8 million of the £3.5 million, which demonstrates the Scottish Government’s willingness to listen and act and, as usual, go above and beyond what the UK Government does.