The next item of business is a debate on motion S6M-20208, in the name of Karen Adam, on behalf of the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee, on civil legal assistance in Scotland. I would be grateful if members who wish to speak were to press their request-to-speak buttons. I call Karen Adam to speak to and move the motion on behalf of the committee.
14:27
I am pleased that we have the opportunity today to debate the provision of civil legal assistance in Scotland. In the course of our inquiry, the committee was presented with an alarming picture of the current availability of civil legal assistance. People’s access to justice is being compromised, and we must take the opportunity today, as a whole Parliament, to debate the “Report on the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee inquiry into Civil Legal Assistance in Scotland”.
Access to justice has been a key theme of the committee’s work during the current session of Parliament. In particular, the committee has been concerned about the provision of civil legal assistance and the increasing challenges that some people face in finding a lawyer to take on a case.
In the context of recent increasing concern about the ever-declining number of solicitors in Scotland who are taking on legal aid work, the committee agreed to undertake an inquiry into civil legal assistance in Scotland. The committee agreed to focus on what is and what is not working in the current civil legal aid system, and on what changes could be made in the short term and the longer term to address access issues.
A number of key themes emerged from our work. However, before I get into those themes, I state that the committee was disappointed that no primary legislation has been introduced in the current session of Parliament to effect an improvement in the provision of civil legal assistance. The concerns that we heard emphasised that the need for legislative change has long been known and has not just emerged, and a desire was expressed that primary legislation should have been introduced earlier in the session. However, it is welcome that the Scottish Government has been consulting on reform, and we hope that the Government will go even further. Legislative reform of civil legal assistance must be a priority for the next Administration.
During our inquiry we heard significant concerns about the operation of current systems, which emphasised the acuteness of the situation. I am grateful to all those who provided us with written and oral evidence that painted such a vivid picture of the current predicament with regard to civil legal assistance in Scotland. The committee was presented with a picture of legal aid deserts that are compromising people’s ability to exercise their legal rights. These legal aid deserts relate both to geographical areas and to areas of law, including those relating to asylum seekers, immigration, welfare, housing and employment.
Perhaps most strikingly, we heard about the experience of women seeking legal assistance in relation to domestic abuse cases. We were given the example of Grampian Women’s Aid, where workers are making 50 to 60 calls a day to find a legal aid solicitor. That challenge is not unique to remote and rural areas. We were also told that, in domestic abuse cases across Scotland, women are having to contact 30 to 50 solicitors before they can access advice. We noted that that was unacceptable and, in our report, we urged the Scottish Government and the Scottish Legal Aid Board to work together to understand the extent of unmet need for civil legal assistance in Scotland. Therefore, we welcome the Scottish Government’s recognition—in its response to the report—of the need to undertake such an exercise, and we also welcome the efforts that are being made by SLAB and the Law Society of Scotland to do it.
It is also pleasing to note the commitment of funding for initiatives such as the legal aid traineeship fund to attract new entrants to the legal profession. Measures to increase the capacity and capability of the supply base are noted, as well as the potential impact of the Regulation of Legal Services (Scotland) Act 2025.
Those are all welcome measures that we hope can contribute to an improved supply of civil legal assistance. However, there must be tangible results from the exercise, and we will strongly emphasise to our successor committee that it must hold the Scottish Government to account for progress in those areas. Although we welcome the measures, we note that they do not respond to the primary driver of shortages that we heard about. We were told that shortages of legal aid practitioners were primarily attributable to the low rates of fees for solicitors for legal aid work, and that increasing those rates would have a significant impact on the availability of legal aid practitioners. There appeared to the committee to be a clear link between low fee rates and the lack of lawyers who are willing to undertake legal aid work.
When we reported, we welcomed the Minister for Victims and Community Safety’s commitment to reinitiate fee review planning and collaborate with stakeholders on the reform of legal fees in 2025. The committee also welcomes the subsequent commitment to establishing a fee review mechanism group. It is pleasing to see that the group has now been established and has met, and we hope that it can make good and swift progress.
The report says:
“Bureaucratic processes were identified as another major barrier to offering and accessing civil legal assistance. SLAB administration requirements were seen as burdensome and disproportionate resulting in a strained relationship between legal aid lawyers and SLAB.”
We also heard that the administrative processes undermined legal practitioners’ capacity to undertake trauma-informed approaches, so it is pleasing to see the Scottish Government’s recognition of that concern, including its recognition of the importance of a trauma-informed approach.
In the coming weeks, the committee looks forward to scrutinising secondary legislation, which the Government tells us will: provide quicker access to legally aided services for people who are eligible; reduce administration for solicitors and SLAB; reduce the number of multiple legal aid applications that are required for payment; and provide greater certainty of payment.
We note the secondary legislation that supports those policy objectives, but it is disappointing that no changes will be made to address the pressing concerns around access to civil legal assistance, and we consider that a range of suggestions from our report could have been taken forward at this juncture. However, we welcome the on-going planning for primary legislation in the next parliamentary session to respond to those challenges.
Eligibility for civil legal assistance was another key concern for the committee that emerged from the inquiry. For example, we noted that it is not tenable that someone with £1,718 in their bank account
“should not be able to access Advice and Assistance”,
and we called for inflationary increases and increases to advice and assistance financial eligibility
“to match civil legal assistance thresholds as proposed by the Scottish Association of Law Centres.”
We recommended
“that the Scottish Government pursue reforms with a view to removing financial eligibility tests”
for legally aided legal advice on civil protection orders and homelessness due to a breach of statutory duty cases. We also urged the Scottish Government to
“investigate options for ensuring legal aid is available without means-testing to a wider selection of domestic abuse cases.”
The committee did not find that the flexibilities that exist in the current system are sufficient to meet the challenges that people currently face in relation to eligibility.
In its response to the report, the Scottish Government noted its commitment
“to ensuring that civil legal aid is accessible to all who need it, particularly survivors of domestic and gender-based violence as highlighted in the Committee report.”
We would welcome more clarity in the Minister for Victims and Community Safety’s response on how that commitment will be met.
In the longer term, the committee welcomed
“the emphasis being placed on mixed models of delivery and user voice by the Scottish Government.”
However, we believe that judicare, whereby solicitors themselves decide whether to offer legal aid and are paid on a case-by-case basis, must remain a key feature of any future system.
The committee also asked that
“the Scottish Government consider preventative approaches and public legal education as part of its discussion on longer-term reforms.”
Again, we would welcome some further reflections on that point from the minister in the course of the debate.
There are serious concerns about the operation of civil legal assistance in Scotland. We welcome the generally positive tenor of the Scottish Government’s response and hope that it will be accompanied by action, so that any future committee will not express similar concerns to ours at the end of the next parliamentary session. I look forward to the remainder of this important debate.
I move,
That the Parliament notes the findings and recommendations in the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee’s 3rd Report, 2025 (Session 6), Report on the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee inquiry into Civil Legal Assistance in Scotland (SP Paper 858).
14:37
I welcome the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee’s report on civil legal aid. It is a report that highlights the strengths of our system and also the need for change. I also thank all the organisations and individuals who contributed to the report. Those insights have been invaluable in shaping the report and they will also inform the Scottish Government’s response and work as we progress legal aid reform.
The legal aid system in Scotland remains among the most comprehensive in Europe. It is demand led, and all who are eligible receive support. In the previous financial year, expenditure reached £169 million, which is the highest figure in cash terms since 2016-17.
The committee’s report is clear: the system must evolve to meet the needs of a modern justice system. I agree—reform is essential to maintain and strengthen access to justice. We must ensure that legal aid is affordable and ensures value for taxpayers’ money.
The committee’s recommendations align closely with our programme of reform, which was set out in the “Legal Aid Reform Discussion Paper” that was published in February. That paper set out proposals for a modernised legal aid framework that is simpler, more flexible and better able to respond to changing needs. That includes exploring a single, streamlined application process and a more sustainable funding model that balances fair remuneration with value for taxpayers. Those reforms will ensure that legal aid remains accessible, efficient and resilient in the decades to come.
The discussion paper, our programme of work to prepare for future legislation and the action that we are taking now to improve the system is guided by four principles: equality and human rights; people-centred service design; evidence-based policy; and collaboration and partnership.
I will outline some of that current work. In December, we laid draft regulations to strengthen support in the children’s hearings system. Children will no longer need to pass income or merit tests to prove that their case deserves support. The initial authorised expenditure limit for solicitors will rise substantially from £135 to £550, reducing administrative burdens. Importantly, care leavers who are in receipt of our care leavers payment will not have that counted against them when their eligibility for legal aid is assessed. Those changes will ensure that financial support that is intended to help care-experienced young people does not create unintended barriers to accessing justice.
I welcome the draft Scottish statutory instrument that was laid towards the end of December. Does the minister feel that that goes as far as is recommended in this excellent committee report, particularly in relation to women who are facing domestic violence and people who are facing homelessness? It is in those areas that people want change to be speeded up.
More than 18 months ago, I committed to considering what non-primary legislation we could introduce. That work is being done in consultation with the Scottish Legal Aid Board and the Law Society of Scotland. In the meantime, we have taken forward what we can. However, I take the member’s point, and I will be referring to the issue later in my speech.
The changes will reduce complexity, support early resolution and guarantee timely representation for those who are most in need. In addition, and importantly, we committed to and have established the independent fee review mechanism group to examine what changes are needed to create a legal assistance system for the 21st century. The group will play a crucial role in shaping a fair and sustainable fee structure that supports access to justice and the viability of legal aid work.
The committee’s report highlighted concerns about geographic and subject matter gaps. Although the number of civil legal aid solicitors has declined over the past decade, the average number of grants per solicitor has increased, showing a concentrated and more active cohort. However, I recognise that challenges remain, so we are considering actions to address those specifically.
We are developing a new legal aid traineeship fund to attract new entrants and to increase capacity. The fund will run for another two years from 2026, and I have committed to fund up to 20 traineeships initially. We are taking on board the lessons learned from the first fund to develop the new scheme, including potential targeting of specific geographic areas and legal aid types.
We are also supporting initiatives under the Regulation of Legal Services (Scotland) Act 2025, which will allow charities and law centres to directly employ solicitors, expanding access to justice for vulnerable people and communities. That reform will enable third sector organisations to deliver reserved legal services, such as court representation, without needing to rely on external legal firms. That provision is anticipated to be included in the commencement order that is to be laid before the Scottish Parliament next month.
In addition, we have introduced non-means-tested legal aid for families who are involved in fatal accident inquiries following deaths in custody. Legal aid must be accessible to those who need it most, and I am pleased to inform the chamber that, between April and December last year, 22 families have received civil legal aid due to that new measure.
We continue to support survivors of domestic abuse through targeted funding and pilot projects. Those measures reflect our commitment to trauma-informed service delivery and inclusive access.
The Scottish Legal Aid Board is a key partner in legal aid reform, and it has provided a response to the committee’s report that outlines some of the work that it is taking forward, independently of the Scottish Government and in collaboration with the Law Society of Scotland, to make improvements.
In the longer term, we want SLAB’s grant funding powers to be used to support more developmental areas of work. That includes new ways of managing demand for assistance; better connecting people from marginalised communities to legal aid support; embedding digital approaches in advice delivery and support for advisers; and using grants to build capacity.
Reform is not a single act but an on-going process. We will continue to work with the committee, SLAB and stakeholders to deliver a system that is fair, sustainable and fit for the future, upholds equality, protects human rights and ensures access to justice.
14:44
Throughout the committee’s inquiry, we heard consistent and deeply concerning evidence about the growing difficulty that individuals face in finding a solicitor who is willing or able to take on legal aid cases. Solicitors are leaving legal aid work, and those who remain face rising case loads, financial insecurity, stress and burnout. The pressure on those professionals is intense, and the consequences are borne by the most vulnerable in our society.
What was striking to me and the committee was not only the strength of feeling in the evidence, but the fact that many of the concerns have been raised for years—in some cases, since at least 2017. What is required is structural reform of a system that is no longer fit for purpose. There is a lack of any change leadership, and there are serious issues with the system that is managed by SLAB.
Regarding SLAB, the committee had intended to publish this report before the summer recess, but just as we were due to consider a first draft, we received late correspondence from SLAB suggesting that some of the evidence that we had taken was based on what it described as “demonstrable misunderstandings”. The letter was described by the committee as “disappointing”. That is an understatement, not because it delayed our work, but because SLAB had ample opportunity to respond to evidence during oral evidence sessions or through timely follow-up submissions. In my view, submitting that correspondence at a late stage was disrespectful to the committee and only served to reinforce the concerns that we heard about SLAB’s poor stakeholder engagement and its methods.
Legal aid policy is set by the Scottish Government, which oversees SLAB, yet, time and time again, we heard that SLAB’s bureaucratic processes and poor engagement are a major barrier to offering and accessing civil legal assistance.
[Made a request to intervene.]
I say sorry to the minister, but I will make progress.
Administrative requirements were described as “burdensome”, “disproportionate” and “damaging” to SLAB’s relationships with the legal profession. Individuals cannot access legal aid unless they go through a solicitor, and legal aid is not available to groups.
JustRight Scotland gave the committee an illustration of the kind of administrative processes that solicitors are required to engage in with SLAB. Andy Sirel told the committee:
“This afternoon, I will probably go back to my office to negotiate with SLAB over sums of money as small as £7.50”,
or that SLAB might say:
“‘You had a meeting that lasted one hour. We think it should only have lasted 45 minutes.’”—[Official Report, Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee, 13 May 2025; c 35.]
Witnesses told the committee that such processes are having a negative impact on the relationship between lawyers working in legal aid and the Scottish Legal Aid Board.
The Scottish Government has repeatedly promised reform. The programme for government 2021-22 pledged that legislation on legal aid would happen during this parliamentary session, but progress has stalled, key stakeholders withdrew from engagement and, once again, reform has been kicked into the long grass.
The Human Rights Consortium Scotland highlighted the existence of “advice deserts” in
“areas of the law such as domestic abuse, discrimination and human rights.”
As we heard from the convener, Grampian Women’s Aid told us that it is making between 50 and 60 calls just to find one legal aid solicitor. We had evidence that it had taken 117 calls for one domestic abuse survivor to find a legal aid solicitor. Women who are fleeing domestic abuse face additional barriers, particularly around financial eligibility and paperwork. Many have experienced financial abuse or fled without documentation.
SLAB told us that there were flexibilities in the system, but awareness of that is low, and reliance on that so-called flexibility has not been sufficient to help the most needy. How can it be that the former chief executive of the Scottish National Party and husband of the former First Minister can receive legal aid when the most vulnerable in our society are denied it?
Our committee was told about a survivor of domestic abuse who had to flee for her own safety and that of her 12-year-old son. Sara is legally married. Her husband has the financial means and resources to employ solicitors, who have been advising him. There are two properties from the marriage, but Sara has no access to those without legal assistance, and no solicitor will take on her case without payment. Her husband—the abuser—has recourse to the law, which has enabled him to retain all the assets from the marriage while Sara is left with no assistance whatsoever to help her in her situation, thereby enabling coercive control to continue.
I have constituents who face similar situations. One has had to leave her children behind and has no access to them. However, even though she is on the minimum wage, she earns too much to access legal aid, so again he has coercive control and control of the children. That is why the committee strongly recommended removing means testing for civil protection order and homelessness cases and exploring wider access to non-means-tested legal aid for domestic abuse cases.
The legal aid system is broken. Our committee report involved such a lot of work and effort by so many people, but it will now go on the shelf, as we are only a few months from the end of the session. That is wrong and disrespectful to the Scottish people.
I call Ariane Burgess.
[Inaudible.]—broader eligibility, reduced bureaucracy and targeted action to retain and attract legal aid solicitors in remote areas. Will they ensure that—
Ms Burgess, my apologies, I called you a little early. That will give us time to address the audiovisual issues.
I should of course have called Katy Clark.
14:51
Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I am pleased to open the debate on behalf of Scottish Labour. We thank committee members, clerks and all others who contributed to the committee’s important report. We believe that the issues that are highlighted in the report go back over many decades. It is vital that we have a properly funded and accessible legal aid system.
As we have heard, cuts to legal aid rates over a number of years have led to what are called legal aid deserts, where it is impossible to find a lawyer to take on a civil legal aid case. Insufficient fees for civil legal aid have led to lawyers being unwilling to carry out such work, and low eligibility thresholds mean that fewer and fewer people qualify. There have also been cuts—again, over many years—to the types of cases in which it is possible to get legal aid.
We are all aware of many constituents who have been unable to get legal representation when they need it, and we agree with the committee convener that it is very disappointing that there will be no primary legislation on the issue in this parliamentary session. It is also very disappointing that there has been no other significant action, with the situation only getting worse—in that respect, I listened very carefully to what the minister said.
Scottish Labour has repeatedly warned about the deep and damaging cuts that the Scottish Government has made to the legal aid system. Scottish Government spending on legal aid has declined by 45 per cent over the past decade. We are clear that there must be an end to the cuts to legal aid and that the system must receive sustainable funding. The cuts that there have been have also clearly contributed to the growing issues with legal aid provision that we are seeing across Scotland.
[Made a request to intervene.]
The number of solicitors who are registered to provide legal aid in Scotland has fallen by 12 per cent in just three years.
Does the minister still want to make an intervention?
Yes—a brief one. I appreciate that there are concerns about eligibility, fees and so on, and negotiations are on-going on those issues, but would you acknowledge that legal aid has had an increase of 25 per cent since 2019?
Always speak through the chair.
I am aware of the very recent increases, but, as the minister is aware, the problem is the significant cuts that have been made over many, many years. The 10 per cent rise in fees in 2023 effectively meant little in the face of cumulative inflation of 16 per cent at that time. I accept that the situation has improved in some ways in that there have begun to be increases in legal aid rates, but that is against a backdrop of many years of cuts. I am sure that the minister accepts that point.
If the minister has worked to fight for more funding and to ensure that there has been at least some increase, I welcome that, given that, in the past, there were many times when rates were frozen and there was no increase.
Does the minister want to make another intervention?
I thank the member for giving way, because this is a really important debate.
One of the big issues that I have seen as a stumbling block to primary legislation being introduced in this parliamentary session is the fee structure. I acknowledge that it has been ad hoc over many years, which is why it is so vital that we have got the fee review mechanism group, which met last year, up and running. I hope that that is welcome.
I understand that some key stakeholders are not willing to take part in that group. At this point in my speech, I am focused on legal aid rates and the reasons why solicitors have walked away from undertaking civil legal aid work in particular, but the issues are very similar with criminal legal aid.
The cuts in rates have been accompanied by an 18 per cent reduction in the number of firms that are registered for legal aid, and I have already spoken about the number of solicitors having reduced by 12 per cent in only three years. That is the very recent past—those are the figures that we are dealing with now, against the backdrop of historical cuts to civil legal aid, which the minister is aware of.
In a recent survey, the Law Society of Scotland found that nearly 41 per cent of respondents plan to stop offering legal aid within two years or are unsure whether they will continue.
I do not know whether I have more time, given that I have taken a couple of interventions.
You do.
There is also concern about the fact that few younger solicitors are doing legal aid work. Currently, twice the number of solicitors registered for legal aid are aged 40 and over, compared with those who are 40 and under. Historically, it was disproportionately the case that younger solicitors carried out legal aid work. Many of the solicitors who undertake legal aid work are likely to retire in the next few years.
In its report, the committee has highlighted that many stakeholders believe that it is the low rates of fees for legal aid work that have contributed to the growing shortage of solicitors. There is no sign that that trend is changing, despite the minister pointing out that there has been at least some increase in rates in recent years, as opposed to the previous freezing of rates. That is why Scottish Labour welcomes the review that the Scottish Government has undertaken. However, it believes that it is too little, too late, and that we could have avoided the recruitment and retention challenges that we currently face.
I welcome the fact that we are having this debate today. We are very disappointed that more action has not been taken in this parliamentary session. We believe that the situation is getting worse and that action is now needed urgently.
14:57
Access to justice is a fundamental human right. It is not a luxury, and it must never be a privilege that is reserved for those with money, confidence or proximity to power. However, as we have heard, for far too many people across Scotland—especially in rural and island communities, including in much of the Highlands and Islands—access to civil legal assistance is becoming increasingly fragile. I welcome the committee’s work and report on the issue.
In my region, people are not choosing to self-represent; they are being forced to. Single migrant parents, disabled people and survivors of domestic abuse can spend months trying to find a legal aid solicitor, only to be told again and again that no one is available. The result is delay, distress and, in many cases, injustice.
It is not an abstract problem—over the past three years, there has been a sharp decline in legal aid providers in Scotland. The number of criminal and children’s legal aid solicitors has fallen by more than 12 per cent, and the number of civil legal aid firms has dropped by nearly 20 per cent. Small, rural and high street practices, which deliver around 90 per cent of legal aid, are leaving the system because the stagnant fees and rising costs make the work unsustainable.
Only around 5 per cent of legal aid funding goes to rural firms, despite rural Scotland being home to almost a third of the population. In towns such as Fort William, Portree, Wick, Kirkwall, Lerwick and Lochmaddy, court duty plans often rely on a single solicitor or none at all. That is not resilience; it is a system that is clearly on the brink.
The workforce is ageing. About 60 per cent of criminal legal aid solicitors are over the age of 55, and more than a third are expected to retire within the next decade. More than 40 per cent of solicitors say that they might stop doing legal aid work within the next two years. When they go, there is often no one to replace them.
The human consequences are stark. In Shetland, Women’s Aid reports that only one local civil legal aid solicitor is available for survivors of domestic abuse. That forces island residents to seek mainland representation, which increases costs, delays and trauma. In the Highlands, a survivor of domestic abuse contacted 116 firms before they finally resorted to crowdfunding for private legal support. From my casework, I know that the growing volume of issues relating to damp and mould in homes clearly shows that there is a gap in accessible legal advice long before cases reach crisis point.
Therefore, legal aid reform is not a technical exercise; it is about redressing power imbalances. Without access to legal support, people cannot challenge poor housing conditions, unlawful decisions, discrimination or environmental harm. Rights that cannot be enforced are rights only in name. That is why reform must sit in a much wider human rights agenda. Enshrining rights in law matters, but unless people can access legal help to uphold those rights, those rights remain meaningless in practice.
Justice should not depend on where someone lives. It was good to hear from the minister about how the Government intends to respond to the committee’s findings in practice and about the work that is currently being undertaken. However, I would appreciate hearing a commitment from the minister to act on the report’s recommendations in a way that reflects rural realities. That includes the need for flexible and fair fee structures, broader eligibility, reduced bureaucracy and targeted action to retain and attract legal aid solicitors in remote areas. Will the minister ensure that innovations such as remote hearings and community legal hubs are used to strengthen, not replace, the local legal aid provision that communities across the Highlands and Islands so urgently need?
15:02
Presiding Officer, I apologise to you and to other members for my late arrival in the chamber this afternoon. Suffice it to say that travelling down from Orkney last night and this morning proved somewhat challenging.
I add my thanks to the committee for its work in producing the report and to the organisations and individuals whose evidence informed it. The report is a very welcome contribution to a debate that is not new. The deficiencies and gaps in the provision of legal aid, which are exacerbated by a complex and often inaccessible system, are challenges that the Government has known about for many years. Indeed, an independent strategic review in 2018 made a number of recommendations for systemic changes to legal aid, but those changes have not been realised.
Various Government task forces, such as the legal aid remuneration project and research analysis group, have been designed to address the challenges, but work has clearly stagnated, which prompted the Law Society of Scotland to pull out of the group in 2024, as it had lost confidence in the task force’s ability to deliver its objectives.
The committee is justified in expressing real disappointment that legislative reforms have not been pursued in this parliamentary session. The minister explained some of the rationale for that, but, given the severity of the access crisis and the long-standing nature of the problems, that is regrettable.
Legal aid deserts have been a central concern of the committee, and that concern has been echoed by the Law Society, the Scottish Human Rights Commission and the Human Rights Consortium Scotland in their evidence. Indeed, my Orkney Islands constituency is frequently cited as an example of a legal aid desert, with Scottish Legal Aid Board data suggesting that there have been no private solicitors in the islands staffing court or police duty plans in recent years, as referred to by Ariane Burgess. Other rural and island communities are similarly impacted.
Although I appreciate that mechanisms are in place to allow solicitors to travel and work across Scotland to provide legal aid, it is simply not sustainable for fewer and fewer solicitors to be covering ever-increasing areas of ground. What is more, the lack of local legal aid provision can compromise the quality of support that is received. That is not a criticism of solicitors, but it is an inevitable consequence of a lack of familiarity.
Law Society analysis from 2022 suggests that 139 of the most deprived communities in Scotland share just 29 civil legal aid firms between them and that there are no civil legal aid firms at all in 122 of those 139 areas.
SLAB research suggests that, since 2014, the most significant decreases in local authority legal aid-funded services have been in rural and island communities, with a 67 per cent decrease in Orkney and a 100 per cent decrease in Shetland. Those shortages reflect significant geographical inequalities and severely compromise access to justice for some of the most vulnerable people in our society. Access to legal aid cannot continue to represent a postcode lottery. The committee is right to identify it as an issue on which urgent action is long overdue.
Patricia Thom, the president of the Law Society of Scotland, rightly emphasised that the current fee system is making it difficult to attract younger solicitors, and she told the committee that, unless the situation improves, we face a “retirement cliff edge” in future. The Government’s commitment to recommencing fee-reviewed planning is therefore welcome and it will be important for Parliament to be kept updated as that work progresses.
Eligibility criteria, particularly financial, are also integral to improving access to legal aid, as Katy Clark and Ariane Burgess have identified. Scottish Women’s Aid and other organisations have highlighted the harm of means testing for eligibility in cases of domestic abuse, where victims who might be subject to economic and financial abuse are being excluded from support. Financial eligibility thresholds will have to be key to any review of potential reforms, considering the need for exceptions in civil protection order cases. Consumer Scotland has also made it clear that embedding the user voice in any reforms needs to be an urgent priority if we are to address unmet need and ensure that vulnerable groups are being heard and represented.
The review represents a vital first step in the much-needed reform of our legal aid system, but it must be followed by urgent action. I again commend the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee for setting us on the road to that reform. The convener is absolutely right that, if we find ourselves in the same position at the end of the next session of Parliament, it will be unforgivable.
I thank the committee for allowing the debate to take place, and I look forward to hearing members’ contributions.
15:07
Presiding Officer, I take this opportunity to wish you and everyone in the Parliament a happy and healthy new year. As we know, it will be a busy one for everyone.
As a member of the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee, I welcome the opportunity to speak in the debate. I thank the committee’s clerks for their assistance with producing the report. I am also grateful to all the stakeholders and witnesses for taking the time to submit their views on the issue.
As has been mentioned, because of concerns about the declining number of solicitors in Scotland who offer legal aid, the committee agreed to undertake an inquiry into civil legal assistance. It is of the utmost importance that we ensure that such assistance is delivered effectively in Scotland so that there is better access to justice for all. Throughout the inquiry, it was understood that there is an urgent need for reform of civil legal assistance.
A key concern was the prevalence of so-called legal aid deserts, as described by Pat Thom, president of the Law Society of Scotland. We refer to legal aid deserts in relation to both geographical areas and particular areas of law, including those relating to asylum seekers, immigration and employment. The situation is exacerbated by the lack of quantity among practitioners.
In the context of domestic abuse the position in rural areas can also be challenging. As has already been mentioned, Dr Marsha Scott of Scottish Women’s Aid highlighted that Grampian Women’s Aid is making between 50 and 60 calls just to find one legal aid solicitor. That means that people cannot exercise their legal rights, which is a real problem. The committee is clear that legal aid deserts cannot be allowed to persist in Scotland.
On a second and connected point, the committee then explored what is causing the shortages in the number of legal practitioners that are, in turn, creating those legal aid deserts. The main finding was that such shortages could be attributed to low rates of fees for solicitors for legal aid work and that increasing those rates would have a significant impact on the availability of legal practitioners. The disincentives to working within the legal aid system were also seen as putting unmanageable strain on the remaining services and increasing work-life balance issues.
The committee welcomes the Scottish Government’s recognition of the need to build capacity. I appreciate that the Government will continue to work on legal aid fee structures, with the aim of implementing reforms that promote fairness, sustainability and responsiveness to case complexity.
The committee has agreed that there is an urgent need for action to improve the delivery of civil legal aid assistance and, in turn, to improve access to justice. However, it recognised that it is now too late in this session of Parliament to introduce primary legislation to reform civil legal assistance.
The Scottish Government agrees with the committee’s view that long-term structural reform of civil legal assistance is needed. In the short term, it would be welcome to see the Scottish Government working with the Scottish Legal Aid Board to progress reforms that do not require primary legislation, including proceeding with measures to increase the fees paid to legal practitioners. It is welcome that the Scottish Government has already announced reforms to make the legal aid system simpler for both solicitors and those who need legal assistance and that it recognises the need for further reform to ensure that Scotland has a modern and responsive system to provide services as efficiently as possible.
No one should be left without access to justice, so it is essential that we push forward and ensure that civil legal assistance is delivered effectively in Scotland.
15:11
A happy new year to you, Presiding Officer, and to colleagues across the chamber.
I am pleased to speak in this debate on the findings and recommendations of the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee’s inquiry into civil legal aid assistance in Scotland, and I thank all committee members and organisations involved for their work.
The committee’s report is clear about a central point, which is that rights are meaningful only if people can enforce them. That matters acutely for many people, but I will talk specifically about why it matters for disabled people, whose rights to independent living, dignity and equal participation are too often undermined by gaps in support, inaccessible systems and a lack of practical assistance and support to lead an ordinary—or, indeed, extraordinary—life.
All of us here have responsibilities to create laws and policies that properly resource services, while doing so in ways that protect rights, and to ensure that there are effective routes to redress when rights are breached. That is why the report’s findings on legal aid deserts are so important. The committee is explicit about the consequences of such deserts, where the absence of advice means that people ultimately cannot exercise their legal rights.
For disabled people, that is not just an abstract concern. When someone cannot access specialist advice, they cannot challenge an unlawful decision about, for example, social care, housing, discrimination or benefits. Without such challenge, poor practice becomes entrenched. For disabled people, matters are often complicated, interconnected and deep rooted. They cannot uphold their rights on their own. They need support and advice—not because they do not have the potential or the capacity to do so but because the system is complex and they need help to navigate it, as we all do.
The committee’s encouragement to SLAB and the Law Society to work together to build a far stronger evidence base for demand and supply is therefore absolutely essential. I add that any serious effort to understand unmet need must actively engage disabled people’s organisations and disability rights expertise, including in law centres, and the relevant capacity in universities, so that the evidence base reflects lived reality rather than only what the current system is able to record.
The report is also persuasive on how the current fee structures can distort access to justice. The evidence on block fees illustrates the risk that funding models underpay for complex work and therefore disincentivise practitioners from taking on urgent, trauma-informed or high-effort, complex cases. As I said, disabled people’s cases are often complex because rights are interconnected by nature. If someone does not have adequate social care, accessible housing is sometimes not meaningful or useful to them; if they do not have accessible housing, employability and participation are constrained; and so on and so forth. If someone cannot challenge failure in one part of the system, harm cascades across the rest and complexity builds, so the system must recognise that complexity, rather than pricing it out, if it is to meaningfully deliver for disabled people and other seldom-heard groups.
Eligibility and the means test are equally important in that respect. The committee is right to be concerned that the current thresholds can create barriers to justice and can exclude people who are not, in any real sense, able to afford legal help, as colleagues have highlighted. For many, including disabled people, a fair approach must therefore also grapple with the reality of disability-related costs.
Evidence from various organisations, including Scope, suggests that additional costs in that sense are significant and range widely. The average is £550 a month, but the costs can be as much as £1,000 a month or more. If we assess disposable income without properly accounting for those unavoidable costs, we could create inequality in eligibility decisions and bake it into a system that is there to protect rights. Disability-related expenditure should therefore be excluded. The definition should be appropriately broad, and SLAB’s on-going review work should explicitly address that as a discrete and substantive strand of reform to support access to justice for disabled people. The committee’s discussion of waivers is also relevant here.
On public interest litigation and group proceedings, the report identifies the structural problem that civil legal assistance is generally available only to individuals, which prevents groups and third sector organisations from accessing legal aid collectively, even when injustice is plainly collective. The committee is right to highlight the individualisation of collective injustice, and I welcome the call to revisit regulation 15 more broadly to allow more collective action and reduce the burden that is placed on the individual.
The report sets out a coherent case for reform. We must build capacity, modernise eligibility and enable collective action where injustice is collective and structural. If we are serious about rights—and I believe that we are—we should be serious about the mechanisms that make those rights enforceable, and serious about reform to deliver them.
The final speaker in the open debate is Paul McLennan.
15:15
I am speaking in this debate as a member of the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee, and I thank everyone who contributed to the inquiry, including the clerks.
The committee agreed to focus on two things in its inquiry—first, what is working and what is not working in the current civil legal aid system; and, secondly, what changes could be made in the short and longer terms to address access issues. I am sure that we could all have long discussions on those issues, but this is only a four-minute speech, so I will try to keep to the main points.
Let us remember that Scotland’s legal aid system is still one of the leading jurisdictions in Europe in terms of scope, eligibility and cost. However, the public rightly expect that publicly funded services will be responsive, user centred and accountable and that they will work effectively. The committee heard that in the evidence that we took. The Scottish Government recognises the need for further reform to ensure that Scotland has a modern and responsive system that provides services as efficiently as possible where and when they are needed. We heard about that from the minister and other speakers in the debate.
Although the Scottish Government’s launch of a legal aid discussion paper was welcome, the committee is disappointed that legislation to give effect to reform has not been introduced in the current session of Parliament. The committee recognises that, at this juncture in the session, such legislation will now not be introduced. Later in my speech, I will touch on what needs to be done before the end of the session. However, in the next session, Parliament must make legislating to reform civil legal assistance an immediate priority, and I am sure that the equalities committee will take that forward. There is a need for long-term structural reform of the current system. In the meantime, the Scottish Government should be taking all the steps that it can take, short of primary legislation, to ameliorate the situation.
The committee is concerned about access to legal aid in Scotland. As we have heard this afternoon, there are lots of issues, particularly in relation to domestic abuse. I have had such issues in my constituency, as I am sure other members have, and we need to take them up as soon as possible. In seeking to respond to the issues, it is critical that there is a better understanding of the extent of unmet need. We heard from various sectors about that, and various speakers have mentioned it today. We really need to get to the bottom of that, because any response to the issue must begin with a proper assessment of the levels of not just geographic need, but issue-related need as well. To that end, the committee encourages SLAB and the Law Society of Scotland to work together to develop a better evidence base on demand for and supply of legal aid-funded legal services.
The committee has significant concerns about the current administrative processes and the damaging effects that they are having on relationships between legal practitioners and SLAB and on the capacity to undertake trauma-informed approaches. The committee calls on the Scottish Government and SLAB to take action to address those concerns. The committee recognises that the current processes exist within a legal framework and that, in some cases, changes cannot be made immediately. However, the committee considers that removing administrative burdens could not only address some of the challenges in the system but result in financial savings for SLAB and the legal profession while also improving the experience of those who engage with the civil legal assistance system. As the committee notes at the beginning of the report, there is an urgent need for action to improve the delivery of civil legal assistance and, in turn, access to justice.
It is disappointing that legislation has not been introduced in the current session to reform the civil legal assistance system. We heard from the minister about the action that has been taken in the meantime. However, there has been an awareness of the need for reform since the current session began. It is really important that the matter is picked up and worked on immediately in the next session. The committee recognises that it is now too late to introduce such primary legislation in the current session. Although the committee recognises that some changes can be made only by way of primary legislation, we urge the Scottish Government to make whatever changes it can make in the interim to effect an improvement in access to justice.
The committee report stated:
“The Scottish Government must work with SLAB now to progress reforms not requiring primary legislation. Specifically, in the short-term, the Scottish Government must ... Proceed with reforms to increase fees paid to legal practitioners; ... Find more opportunities for traineeships to increase capacity”—
we have heard about issues around that—and
“Consider proposals to reduce administrative burdens and bureaucracy, thereby improving relations between SLAB and legal practitioners and creating an environment in which trauma informed approaches can thrive”.
I mentioned domestic abuse.
In the longer term, the committee welcomed
“the emphasis being placed on mixed models of delivery and user voice by the Scottish Government”
and asked that
“the Scottish Government consider preventative approaches and public legal education”
as part of its discussion on longer-term measures.
We move to the winding-up speeches.
15:20
Presiding Officer, I extend, as others have, the wishes of the new year to you and to other members in the chamber.
This has been a fascinating debate, and could perhaps have merited more time. We have heard unanimity of support for the excellent report from the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee and the call for change.
It cannot be acceptable that people’s capacity to exercise their legal right to realise their human rights is so severely compromised. The committee’s report is unequivocal. The shocking picture of the legal aid deserts has been mentioned by Marie McNair and by my colleague Pam Duncan-Glancy with regard to those with a disability facing a lack of access to justice because of the lack of legal aid, and there were powerful contributions from Ariane Burgess and Liam McArthur about the situation in rural and island communities. Those challenges are important.
The report calls for immediate action on the uplifting of fees, a reduction in bureaucracy and the widening of the eligibility thresholds. What has the Government delivered but promises, consultations and deferrals?
Regulations were laid in December 2025 to simplify the judicare model, but that simplification will not solve the crisis of capacity. Three of the four areas that are dealt with in the draft regulations relate to children and the children’s hearings system, which is undergoing massive change; we are unsure what it will look like in the end.
Other issues that could have been dealt with include having easier access to legal aid for homeless people and women who face domestic violence. The rates could also have been dealt with. However, the Government has chosen not to do so, describing that issue as needing primary legislation, when, with the greatest respect, it does not.
After years during which the SNP Government has been in power, legal aid has constantly been pushed further and further down the line, and we are now, as we have heard, at the point of absolute crisis, given that an expert group such as Grampian Women’s Aid is required to make 50 or 60 phone calls to find a legal aid solicitor. It is not randomly choosing people out of the old “Yellow Pages”. It knows the law firms that deal in legal aid and is going specifically to those, in ever wider areas, to try to find support for—as others have, rightly, pointed out—some of the most vulnerable individuals in society.
Solicitors are leaving legal aid work because the fees remain unsustainable. The Government’s response is a fee review mechanism group, yet there is no commitment to increasing the fees, despite the fact that every day of delay deepens that access gap.
The committee has urged the reform of eligibility thresholds, which have been unchanged since 2011. The Government admits that those thresholds are outdated but offers only “future” consideration. Survivors of domestic abuse cannot wait for another session, and homeless families cannot wait for another consultation, because justice delayed is justice denied.
The minister has talked about the rising expenditure on legal aid, and I welcome that, but here is another reality: in 2014-15, there were 1,067 civil legal aid solicitors; in 2023-24, there were just 791. More money spent does not mean better access when the system is broken in the way that it is.
On public interest litigation—which, again, was raised by my colleague Pam Duncan-Glancy—at the end of the day, regulation 15 can be reformed. The Government agrees in principle, but defers it to “longer-term ... reform”. Meanwhile, systematic injustices remain unchallenged.
I thank Martin Whitfield for taking an intervention, and I agree whole-heartedly with the points that he is making. Does he accept that the longer that the patterns of delivery remain in place and the further that reform is pushed down the road, the more difficult it will be to turn the situation around, whether in terms of geographic deserts or among particular groups such as women’s aid, which are finding such problems at the moment?
I am very grateful for the intervention, because that is absolutely right—it is at the heart of this. We can bandy statistics and numbers around, but the reality is that there are individuals in our communities who cannot get justice because they cannot afford it and they cannot get civil legal aid. They are looking at society and asking what the point is for them. That is where this fundamental question will become a crisis because, if people continue to lose confidence in the justice system, they will lose confidence in civil society. The step to prevent that is to do what this Government should have done over the past two decades: improve access to justice. The way to do that is through civil legal aid.
I call Siobhian Brown.
Presiding Officer, this debate has shown—
My apologies, minister. I call Sharon Dowey.
15:25
We now know from this committee report and from speeches by members from around the chamber that the system for legal aid in Scotland is in deep crisis. That should not be news to any of us. It is what we have been told over many years by legal teams that are in charge of implementing the system and by the many people across Scotland who face significant struggles in accessing legal aid, despite being entitled to it.
It should not be news to the Scottish Government, either, which, knowing the problems across the legal system, undertook a review of legal aid in 2018. The review produced clear results and a number of recommendations. Indeed, in the Government’s 2021 programme for government, ministers promised action on this very topic. They said:
“We will engage with both legal professionals and victim support organisations to review the Legal Aid system”.
However, here we are, almost eight years on from the original review publication, debating the same issues.
Understandably, there is huge frustration in both legal and political circles that, irrespective of what the committee’s report recommends, nothing is likely to change any time soon. The clock has run out, and all that the committee can do is hope that whoever makes up the next Scottish Government will revisit the issue and decide to implement the suggestions.
None of this is to say that we do not recognise that this is a highly complex matter. Civil legal aid costs significant sums of money, with spending on the rise, and the types of cases in which it is involved are sensitive and complicated. All the same, it is hard to see how the Scottish Government can ignore the warnings for much longer. Fewer and fewer lawyers are willing to put themselves forward to provide legal aid services, because it simply does not make any business sense. When I asked the Minister for Victims and Community Safety in October 2024 about the chaos engulfing legal aid, she told me:
“the Scottish Government cannot compel private solicitors to undertake work.”—[Official Report, 9 October 2024; c 18.]
That is obvious, but it should then be obvious to the Government that lawyers have no duty to work in legal aid to their own deficit. Therefore, it falls squarely on the Government to fund the service adequately to ensure that legal aid becomes work worth doing.
It should also ring alarm bells for ministers that many of the lawyers who still sign up for legal aid work, often out of a sense of duty rather than for reward, are due to retire. They are unlikely to be replaced, as younger lawyers coming through the system can pursue far more lucrative disciplines. In short, it is a failure of management and planning on the Scottish Government’s behalf.
As it stands, nobody is happy with how the system operates. The legal firms are under stress and cannot manage the workload, the courts are in crisis of their own and struggling to process demand, and the people who need access to civil legal aid for some of the most desperate situations that they will ever face are being failed. Despite that, those who are in charge have simply not done enough to sort the situation out.
In response to the Government’s 2025 legal aid discussion paper, the co-convener of the Law Society of Scotland’s legal aid committee, Ian Moir, said:
“at a time when legal aid is burning to the ground, the Scottish Government has put in an order for a bucket rather than calling the fire brigade. The measures outlined are nowhere near good enough, in either scale or timeline. Additional financial support is needed now”.
We need an urgent review of the whole legal aid system, and that needs to be matched by definitive action. It is time to listen to the experts and those worst affected. There may not be time in this parliamentary window, but it should be a major priority for the next Scottish Government, or the system risks collapsing altogether.
I now call the Minister for Victims and Community Safety.
I am sorry, but I am wondering whether there is someone else still to speak before I do.
This is a committee debate, so—
I am sorry, Presiding Officer—that was my fault.
We will come to the committee’s deputy convener later.
15:30
The debate has shown that we all want to ensure that Scotland’s legal aid system delivers fairness, equality and access to justice for all. As members have said, the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee’s report does not shy away from the challenges: a declining number of civil legal aid providers, complexity in processes and gaps in provision. The report also recognises the strength of Scotland’s system and our opportunity to make it stronger. That is the spirit in which the Government approaches reform.
Our discussion paper sets out a clear direction to design a system that can adapt to changing needs and that can remain sustainable for decades to come. That means considering how legal assistance is delivered, funded and structured, working with providers, advice agencies and service users to ensure that reforms reflect lived experience. We want to build flexibility into the legal aid system, so that it can respond to new challenges without losing sight of fairness and accessibility.
I wish to acknowledge a few specific points that have been made today—and I have a lot to get through. First, on remuneration and viability, I hear the concerns about fees and the pressures on firms. The independent fee review mechanism group is a key part of addressing that, and I will ensure that the points that have been made today, such as those on early resolution and on rural travel, are fed into that work. We are continuing negotiations with the legal aid profession about an uplift in fees across criminal, civil and children’s law.
I acknowledge the challenges around rural and island provision, which are often raised with me in the chamber. Members have highlighted gaps in coverage, and we are exploring targeted solutions, including the legal aid traineeship fund and new models under the Regulation of Legal Services (Scotland) Act 2025, which will allow charities and law centres to employ solicitors directly.
On user experience, several members spoke about complexity and delay. The regulations that we laid in December 2025 are a first step in simplifying processes, and further changes will follow.
In her opening speech, Tess White raised a point regarding operational issues involving legal firms and SLAB. Those concerned will be meeting the Law Society of Scotland this year, which will be the first time since Covid, to discuss operational issues.
The committee convener highlighted her wish to hear more about public legal education. The Scottish Government values stakeholder input and supports preventative approaches, and we will continue to collaborate to improve access and develop preventative tools. Public legal education is part of our longer-term reforms.
I note the committee’s concerns and what members have repeatedly said about legal aid deserts, and the Scottish Government acknowledges the challenges here. We are working with SLAB and the Law Society to build an evidence base and to develop targeted interventions. That includes grant funding and a traineeship fund. As I have said, the Regulation of Legal Services (Scotland) Act 2025 will remove restrictions preventing charities, law centres and citizens advice bodies from directly employing solicitors to provide certain legal services to vulnerable people.
I also highlight civil legal assistance officers. SLAB has continued to employ solicitors to provide advice and represent people with particular types of civil legal problems. It has a network of three officers covering the Highlands and Islands, Argyll and Bute, Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire, and Edinburgh and the Lothians. Members of the public can check whether they are eligible for the service by contacting SLAB for details through its website.
On means testing for legal aid domestic abuse cases, the Scottish Legal Aid Board has updated its guidance to say:
“We understand that it can be difficult for applicants who have had to flee an abusive or controlling relationship to be able to provide the relevant financial verification to support their civil legal aid applications.”
SLAB goes on to say:
“we can use our discretion to either disregard income or capital where we consider it reasonable to do so.”
That update does not represent a change in policy—it is just a means to raise awareness of SLAB’s approach. Legal aid is available to victims of domestic and gender-based violence who are seeking protection through civil actions where they meet the statutory eligibility criteria.
I turn to regulation 15, which Pam Duncan-Glancy touched on. The legal aid system is designed for individual applicants and not groups or organisations, reflecting the legal context at the time that the framework was created. However, regulation 15 should not be a major barrier to public interest litigation, and legal aid has been granted in civil cases despite joint interests being identified. Nevertheless, I take on board the committee’s concerns in that regard.
I am conscious of time; I agree with Mr Whitfield that we could have had more time for this debate, as we have a lot of complex issues to cover regarding legal aid. Nevertheless, my door is always open to members who want to raise with me any issues regarding further legal aid reform.
Legal aid reform is not a single act—it is a process that requires collaboration, evidence and trust. We will continue to engage with the profession, the third sector and those who rely on legal aid and, together, we can deliver a legal aid system that reflects Scotland’s values and meets the challenges of the future.
15:36
This debate has been valuable, as it has emphasised just how critical it is that reforms are made—urgently—to civil legal assistance in Scotland. It is not tenable for us to carry on as we are.
We must translate the positive narrative from the Scottish Government, and its recognition of the need for reform in its response to the committee’s report, into real, tangible action, because warm words and working groups alone will not result in the change that we need. That tangible action must be driven by working closely with key stakeholders.
Perhaps the first tangible action that we have seen since the publication of the committee’s report was the bringing forward of regulations on adults with incapacity. Ultimately, however, those regulations were never laid, as stakeholders were concerned that they might further restrict the availability of civil legal assistance to some of the most vulnerable people in society.
On the one hand, therefore, it is good to see that the Scottish Government has listened to stakeholder concerns. On the other hand, it is disappointing that it was only at that juncture that the Government recognised that the impact of the proposed regulations would be to further restrict access to justice.
Before I turn to some of the themes that have emerged from the debate this afternoon, I will highlight one of the recommendations that the convener was unable to cover in the time available. Specifically, the committee looked at public interest litigation and group proceedings and the barriers to those being pursued. I know that the minister has just addressed that, but I think that it is worth setting the situation out clearly on the record.
Regulation 15 of the Civil Legal Aid (Scotland) Regulations 2002 was seen as the key barrier. The regulation applies where several people have a “joint interest” in legal action. In those circumstances, SLAB cannot grant civil legal aid where the applicant
“would not be seriously prejudiced”
—in other words, if their rights were not significantly impacted—by the situation or where another person “with ... the same interest” could be expected to take the matter forward.
We welcome the fact that the minister and SLAB are revisiting regulation 15 in so far as environmental cases are concerned. However, we remain strongly of the view that there would be significant benefits and efficiencies as a result of revisiting regulation 15 more broadly. Although SLAB has pointed to cases in which civil legal assistance has been granted, those remain isolated cases. We welcome the improved guidance that SLAB has issued, but we ask SLAB and the Scottish Government to look again at regulation 15 with a view to allowing more collective action, reducing the burden on the individual and broadening the côterie of people who benefit from proceedings in a more efficient way.
Turning to themes arising from today’s debate, I am heartened that Ariane Burgess, Pam Duncan-Glancy and Liam McArthur, in their contributions, have grounded us in first principles. Civil legal assistance is not an add-on to our justice system; it is fundamental to ensuring that people can realise their human rights in practice. When someone cannot challenge an unlawful eviction, secure safety for themselves or their children or enforce their rights at work, justice feels not simply distant but unreachable. Our inquiry heard clearly and consistently that this is now the lived reality for far too many people in Scotland.
Katy Clark, Marie McNair and Tess White laid bare the scale of the problem, as did our inquiry. Years of underresourcing and delay have hollowed out provision, creating legal aid deserts across the country and across whole areas of law. These are not abstract gaps on a map; they are structural barriers that fall hardest on those who are already marginalised by poverty, disability, racism, gender-based violence, insecure immigration status, homelessness, rural isolation and other factors. People’s access to justice should not depend on their postcode. Rural and island representatives know that only too well. It should also not depend on whether their income is just above an arbitrary threshold or on whether there happens to be a solicitor nearby who is still able to keep their doors open.
There is also a direct link between unsustainable fee rates and the collapse in the availability of civil legal aid, as Marie McNair and Sharon Dowey outlined. Dedicated practitioners are leaving not because the work does not matter, but because the system no longer allows them to do it with dignity or financial viability. At the same time, excessive bureaucracy, inconsistent abatements and complex application processes actively undermine trauma-informed, person-centred practice.
A justice system that exhausts both those who seek help and those who provide it is not one that is working. Therefore, we need urgent, tangible reform—as Martin Whitfield stated—a significant increase in fees, a fair and transparent mechanism for regular review, and meaningful simplification of administrative processes. We must rebuild capacity for the future through sustained investment in training and through a system that young lawyers want to enter, as Paul McLennan and Pam Duncan-Glancy stressed. We also need innovation to ensure that Scotland’s geography is not an excuse for a lack of provision.
Those improvements are not optional; they are the minimum required to prevent further erosion of people’s ability to enforce their rights. If we want Scotland to be a country where human rights are real, enforceable and equal, civil legal assistance must be treated as core public infrastructure. Delay has consequences, and those consequences are already being borne by the people with the least power.
The committee’s message to the Government is clear: the evidence is overwhelming, the consensus is broad and the need for action is urgent.
As deputy convener of the committee, I thank everyone for their contributions this afternoon, and I thank all those who supported or contributed to the committee’s inquiry.
Now we need action. We have cross-party recognition of the need for change, and we have cross-party awareness that change is long overdue. The Scottish Government must deliver that reform. As a Parliament, we must hold the Government’s feet to the fire, because justice delayed is justice denied.
That concludes the debate on civil legal assistance in Scotland, on behalf of the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee.
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Ministerial Statement