£4.4 Million Spent Each Month on Legal Aid for Asylum Seekers and Migrants

Over £53 million was granted to migrants between April 2022 and March this year, analysis of Ministry of Justice figures has found

Barristers become emotional after listening to speeches during a protest over funding outside Manchester Crown Court on June 27, 2022. Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Asylum and immigration cases are costing £4.4 million in legal aid a month, analysis by The Epoch Times has found.

According to the latest figures from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), over £53 million in legal aid was granted to migrants between April 2022 and March for legal advice and representation.

Of that figure, over £36 million in government help was paid to legal representatives for asylum-only cases, with January to March 2023 recording the highest number of cases on record.

Between January and March this year, 11,430 asylum seekers received government legal aid, compared to 9,135 for the same period in the previous financial year, according to the MoJ statistics.

The average cost of legal help granted to asylum seekers per case is just over £836, figures show.

Non-asylum immigration cases granted finance for legal help amounted to a total of £4,182,448.27 for 4,154 cases in April 2022 to March this year. The average cost of each case was recorded at just over £1,000.

Civil representation of immigration cases before the courts, where costs were met by another government department, stands at over £8.3 million for the 2022 to the 2023 year.

The MoJ figures show that 315 civil cases—at an average cost of £26,402 each—were closed in the last year up until March 2023.

Some of those cases are believed to include legal action against the Home Office for unlawful detention at immigration centres.

The government’s Legal Aid Agency—which provides civil and criminal legal aid and advice in England and Wales—picked up a bill of £4.3 million for the same period.

They provided legal costs for 675 civil cases marked as closed between April 2022 and March this year. The average spend on each case was £6,492.

‘Too Little, Too Late’

Last month, the MoJ launched a consultation about increasing legal aid rates by 15 percent for immigration lawyers representing asylum seekers threatened with removal to Rwanda under new rules in the illegal Migration Bill.

Presently, the hourly legal aid rate for lawyers carrying out asylum work is approximately £52 in London and £47 outside London.

The MoJ consultation, which is set to close next month, has already been met with criticism from legal groups who say the 15 percent increase is not enough to deal with an expected workload increase caused by the new law.

In its response to the MoJ this week, the Public Law Project described the proposed fee increase as “too little, too late.”

In a statement posted on its website, the group said: “The whole legal aid sector has been struggling for years due to administrative burdens and fees that haven’t been increased since 1996.

“Providers have closed across areas where thousands of eligible migrants are already seeking legal aid. New cases involving the Illegal Migration Bill will be complex and highly time-sensitive, stretching capacity that is already at breaking point.”

The legal group said that if the government proposal “truly reflected the scale of the challenges” it would suggest higher fees across the sector.

“Increasing them for only one area also creates the risk that providers will have more incentive to take this work and ignore vulnerable people who are already in the system.

“A 15 percent uplift for one specific area is too little and too late, given the scale of the issues that the Illegal Migration Bill will cause—as well as the current desperate state of immigration legal aid for both providers and clients.”

It has been estimated more than 1,300 people crossed the English Channel to the UK on board small boats in January Gareth Fuller/PA

Unscrupulous Lawyers

On Thursday, Justice Secretary Alex Chalk urged Britain’s solicitor regulatory body to wield the “full force of sanctions” against unscrupulous immigration lawyers over claims some were behind false asylum claims.

On Monday the Daily Mail reported that multiple solicitors agreed to help an undercover reporter, who was posing as an economic migrant, submit a phoney application in exchange for thousands of pounds.

One lawyer, secretly recorded, asked for £10,000 to invent a horrific back story to use in the asylum application, according to the newspaper.

This included claims of sexual torture, beatings, slave labour, false imprisonment and death threats that left him suicidal and compelled to flee to the UK.

In a letter to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), Mr. Chalk wrote: “I would strongly encourage you to use the full force of sanctions available to you against solicitors where there is a finding of a breach.”

In response, a SRA spokesperson told The Epoch Times it intends on taking “urgent action” against firms or individuals found to be involved in breaching professional standards.

“This is especially important in areas such as immigration where those involved may be among the most vulnerable in society.”

The SRA added that if evidence is found that solicitors or firms have acted in ways that contravene its strict rules, “we can and will take action.”

In total, 45,755 migrants crossed the English Channel last year, the highest number since figures began to be collected in 2018.

As of July 9, 12,772 people had crossed in 2023, including 3,824 in June, the highest number for any June on record.