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Respond to the consultation on civil legal aid fees by 21 March

28 Feb 2025
1 minute read
The UK government is proposing an increase to civil legal aid fees. Share your views and help make this vital public service more sustainable. We urge all legal aid providers to respond, particularly those with housing and immigration contracts.

The proposals include:

  • raising rates for housing and immigration to a minimum of £65 per hour for non-London work and £69 per hour for London-based work, or providing a 10% uplift – whichever is higher. This means:
    • the lowest controlled work fees will increase by up to around 40%
    • licensed work increases will be more in the region of 10%
  • investing £20 million more a year in civil legal aid, which will result in:
    • a 30% fee increase for work in immigration and asylum
    • a 24% fee increase for work in housing and debt
  • allowing all civil legal aid providers to see more clients remotely and reducing the requirement to operate from permanent offices

The consultation is open until 21 March.

Respond to the consultation

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) says the proposed increases are intended to “ensure a sustainable housing and immigration legal aid market by remunerating at a rate which allows providers to attract and retain legal aid professionals and enables providers to innovate and try different delivery models”.

The proposed increase in hourly rates is informed by evidence we developed with Frontier Economics on costs, revenues and profitability of providers.

However, profitability depends on business models, operating costs and hours employees bill for.

Your feedback on these specific issues is essential to help the UK government set fair and appropriate rates.

You can also share your views on proposals to simplify fees and reduce contractual limitations on remote working and office presence requirements.

We encourage you to provide feedback to the UK government on the proposed changes before Friday 21 March 2025.

You can respond online or email civillegalaidreform@justice.gov.uk.

You can also send a response by post to:

Civil Legal Aid Reform Policy Team
Ministry of Justice Eligibility, Civil and Family Legal Aid Policy
102 Petty France
London SW1H 9AJ

Next steps

A paper summarising the responses to this consultation will be published in spring 2025.

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