Recommendations & Conclusions
27 items
2
Recommendation
59th Report - Ministry of Justice follo…
Acknowledged
Despite closing the prison in August 2024, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and HMPPS still do not have clear plans for the future of Dartmoor. MoJ previously assured us that its aim was to remediate HMP Dartmoor and bring it back into safe use. However, over a year since HMPPS …
Government response. The government agrees that a decision on remediating Dartmoor has been made. However, the response is truncated and does not explicitly commit to providing the detailed assessment, cost estimates, or value-for-money analysis to the Committee as requested.
HM Treasury
3
Recommendation
59th Report - Ministry of Justice follo…
Accepted
We are not satisfied that MoJ and the Legal Aid Agency (LAA) are doing enough to ensure that people eligible for legal aid can access it, particularly those who are digitally excluded. This Committee previously raised concerns that LAA’s reliance on remote advice in areas of the country which lack …
Government response. The government accepts the recommendation, detailing a civil demand feasibility study with Ipsos (reporting March 2026) to monitor access for digitally excluded individuals and a programme to transform legal aid services. To close provision gaps, they are injecting £20m into …
HM Treasury
4
Recommendation
59th Report - Ministry of Justice follo…
Accepted
More than ten years since the legal aid reforms, MoJ has still not demonstrated a sufficient understanding of the additional costs of legal aid reforms, particularly the impact of litigants in person. A decade ago our predecessors urged MoJ to get a better understanding of the wider costs of its …
Government response. The government agrees and states it has already written to the Committee, alongside the Treasury Minute, providing the results of its local authority survey and planned investigations. It also committed to writing to the Committee in October 2026 to detail …
HM Treasury
5
Recommendation
59th Report - Ministry of Justice follo…
Accepted
We remain unconvinced that MoJ has put in place sufficient measures to ensure the future sustainability of the legal aid market. In its 2024 report, this Committee raised concerns that while MoJ was undertaking large scale reviews of both criminal and civil legal aid it had not put in place …
Government response. The government agrees with the recommendation and is undertaking a feasibility study with Ipsos to establish a repeatable methodology for monitoring legal aid demand and market sustainability. They will also explore options to routinely monitor the profitability of legal aid …
HM Treasury
6
Recommendation
59th Report - Ministry of Justice follo…
Accepted
Despite lessons learned from the cyberattack on the LAA, funding to address weaknesses across MoJ systems is uncertain. Vulnerabilities in LAA’s systems had been on MoJ’s risk register since 2021. However, MoJ’s investment of over £50 million to transform and stabilise LAA’s systems was insufficient to prevent hackers accessing a …
Government response. The government agrees with the recommendation, detailing numerous ways lessons learned from the cyberattack have been shared across government. It also confirms that funding has been allocated for the transformation of LAA systems for 2026-2029, alongside continuous security reviews.
HM Treasury
1
Conclusion
59th Report - Ministry of Justice follo…
Acknowledged
We took evidence from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) and the Legal Aid Agency (LAA) to follow up on our recent scrutiny of several topics. This included HMPPS’s management of the lease renewal at HMP Dartmoor, MoJ and LAA’s response to the previous Committee’s …
Government response. The government acknowledges the committee's work and outlines lessons learned from the Dartmoor lease negotiations, including improved radon policies and embedding learning into future decision-making for estates projects.
HM Treasury
7
Conclusion
59th Report - Ministry of Justice follo…
Acknowledged
HMPPS acknowledged that it would have been helpful to have more information on the density of radon at the Dartmoor site prior to the lease negotiations.11 However, it bizarrely maintained that signing the lease without undertaking a recent survey was sensible, given the prison capacity crisis at the time. It …
Government response. The government acknowledges it would have been beneficial to have a comprehensive understanding of radon presence before making a decision on the lease. HMPPS has improved radon policies, procedures, and training and are embedding learning from Dartmoor into future decision-making.
HM Treasury
8
Conclusion
59th Report - Ministry of Justice follo…
Acknowledged
Under the terms agreed HMPPS cannot terminate the new lease until after December 2033. The cost of the lease is £1.5 million a year, a slight increase on the £1.44 million it was paying when the lease expired in December 2023.14 We asked HMPPS what the total costs of keeping …
Government response. HMPPS has significantly improved and implemented updated radon policies and procedures, and training for employees, to ensure the effective management of radon and is embedding learning from Dartmoor into future decision-making, to ensure that any future contracts deliver value for …
HM Treasury
9
Conclusion
59th Report - Ministry of Justice follo…
Acknowledged
Given their knowledge that radon had previously been detected at the site, we asked MoJ and HMPPS why they had not negotiated an earlier exit term, or provisions to change the terms if radon levels were to increase so that the prison became partially or wholly unusable. MoJ stated that …
Government response. The government acknowledges it would have been beneficial to have a comprehensive understanding of radon presence before making a decision on the lease. HMPPS has improved radon policies, procedures, and training and are embedding learning from Dartmoor into future decision-making.
HM Treasury
10
Conclusion
59th Report - Ministry of Justice follo…
Acknowledged
In our January 2025 session on prison estate capacity, MoJ stressed that it aimed to remediate HMP Dartmoor and bring it back into use if it could find a technical solution to radon issues at the site.19 MoJ reiterated that this remains its ambition as it does not want to …
Government response. The MoJ and HMPPS will write to the Committee once the proposed approach to remediating Dartmoor has been decided.
HM Treasury
11
Recommendation
59th Report - Ministry of Justice follo…
Deferred
We asked MoJ at what point it would make a judgement on whether continuing the works represented the best value for money. MoJ told us that to date it has spent £1.2 million on radon mitigation works, but that it is not currently spending any money on the site until …
Government response. The MoJ and HMPPS will write to the Committee once the proposed approach to remediating Dartmoor has been decided, which will be in June 2026.
HM Treasury
12
Recommendation
59th Report - Ministry of Justice follo…
Deferred
Our predecessor Committee’s May 2024 report on legal aid in England and Wales raised concerns around access to legal aid advice in areas of the country lacking face-to-face provision of legal aid. Where there are gaps in provision MoJ and LAA often rely on remote advice to fill the gaps. …
Government response. The MoJ commenced a civil demand feasibility study with Ipsos to identify options for the routine monitoring of demand for civil legal aid and will report by the end of March 2026 and the department will report back to the …
HM Treasury
13
Recommendation
59th Report - Ministry of Justice follo…
Accepted
In its Treasury Minute response to our predecessor’s 2024 report, MoJ acknowledged that while remote advice can be effective, some people will always require face-to-face advice. It said that it had worked with stakeholders to identify safeguards and better understand the impact of remote provision, for example, for those in …
Government response. The MoJ will explore removing barriers to providers meeting clients face-to-face, increase understanding of demand from digitally excluded individuals, and report back to the Committee in October 2026.
HM Treasury
14
Recommendation
59th Report - Ministry of Justice follo…
Accepted
We asked MoJ and LAA for an update on what they are doing to ensure that different groups can access legal aid, particularly those for whom remote advice may not be suitable. LAA explained that since the previous Committee’s evidence session, it had been looking at how to empower providers …
Government response. The MoJ will explore removing barriers to providers meeting clients face-to-face, increase understanding of demand from digitally excluded individuals, and report back to the Committee in October 2026.
HM Treasury
15
Conclusion
59th Report - Ministry of Justice follo…
Accepted in Part
LAA did, however, acknowledge that there are still gaps in securing sufficient provision of legal aid across the country, particularly for housing and debt advice.30 MoJ explained that LAA is currently meeting its standard of ensuring there is at least one provider for the different types of legal aid (five …
Government response. The Government is taking steps to support these sectors with uplifts for controlled immigration & asylum and housing and debt legal aid work and secured outreach provision in eight of the 21 areas with a further six outreach offers currently …
HM Treasury
16
Recommendation
59th Report - Ministry of Justice follo…
Acknowledged
For a decade, this Committee and its predecessors have urged MoJ to get a better understanding of the wider costs of its legal aid reforms. A 2015 report noted the lack of analysis MoJ had undertaken of the wider impacts of the reforms on itself and other government departments and …
Government response. The government agrees and states the department has written to the Committee, alongside the Treasury Minute response, setting out the results of its survey of local authorities and any further investigations planned.
HM Treasury
17
Recommendation
59th Report - Ministry of Justice follo…
Accepted
MoJ’s Treasury Minute response indicated that it had begun discussions with the Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government (MHCLG, or the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, as it was then called) to understand whether local authorities were funding immigration legal advice. However, its response on understanding the …
Government response. The department has written to the Committee, alongside the Treasury Minute response, setting out the results of its survey of local authorities and any further investigations planned.
HM Treasury
18
Recommendation
59th Report - Ministry of Justice follo…
Acknowledged
We asked MoJ what work it had done to better understand the effects of its legal aid reforms on local authorities and their legal advice services. MoJ said that it has surveyed local authorities to understand where they were providing additional legal advice and why, but it told us that …
Government response. The government agrees and states the department has written to the Committee, alongside the Treasury Minute response, setting out the results of its survey of local authorities and any further investigations planned.
HM Treasury
19
Recommendation
59th Report - Ministry of Justice follo…
Accepted
On litigants in person, MoJ acknowledged that its data have not been good enough to understand the impact of LIPs on courts. However, it said that its court reform programme, which included the introduction of a common platform in criminal courts, will allow it to capture data about LIPs and …
Government response. The department will improve data and analysis regarding litigants in person, and will write to the Committee in October 2026 setting out the current position on data collection for litigants in person, and the department’s intention to write to the …
HM Treasury
20
Recommendation
59th Report - Ministry of Justice follo…
Deferred
Our predecessor Committee’s 2024 report on legal aid stated that MoJ had been slow to initiate and complete its large-scale reviews of the sustainability of both the criminal and civil legal aid systems. It raised particular concerns around the civil legal aid sector where legal aid fees had not increased …
Government response. The department will explore options to routinely monitor the profitability of legal aid firms, improve management information collected on demand, streamline processes and reduce administrative burdens, and will provide an update to the Committee on this work in October 2026.
HM Treasury
21
Recommendation
59th Report - Ministry of Justice follo…
Accepted
In its Treasury Minute response MoJ stated that it was considering how to monitor profitability more regularly. It said that the Independent Criminal Legal Aid Board (CLAAB), established following the review of criminal legal aid, had included discussion of the current market position. But MoJ did not set out any …
Government response. The department will explore options to routinely monitor the profitability of legal aid firms, improve the management information collected on demand with the support of Ipsos, and provide an update in October 2026.
HM Treasury
22
Recommendation
59th Report - Ministry of Justice follo…
Accepted
We asked MoJ and LAA for an update on how they were monitoring the sustainability and profitability of legal aid work. MoJ said that it had recently surveyed both criminal and civil legal aid providers and that it was currently considering recommendations made by the CLAAB. It also stated that …
Government response. The department will explore options to routinely monitor the profitability of legal aid firms, improve the management information collected on demand with the support of Ipsos, and provide an update in October 2026.
HM Treasury
23
Conclusion
59th Report - Ministry of Justice follo…
Deferred
Written evidence we received from organisations including the Law Society, Public Law Project and Law Centres Network all raised concerns about whether the actions MoJ has taken to date were sufficient or fast enough to tackle long-term sustainability issues.44 For example, the Law Society stressed that for civil legal aid, …
Government response. The department will explore options to routinely monitor the profitability of legal aid firms, improve management information collected on demand, streamline processes and reduce administrative burdens, and will provide an update to the Committee on this work in October 2026.
HM Treasury
24
Conclusion
59th Report - Ministry of Justice follo…
Accepted
MoJ and LAA acknowledged that the cyberattack on LAA’s online digital services began in December 2024, four months before the LAA detected the attack on 23 April 2025.46 LAA explained that in April, it took action to boost the security of the systems concerned and informed legal aid providers that …
Government response. The MoJ and LAA have already identified and shared lessons from the attack through several routes including internally across MoJ, with Permanent Secretaries, to the cross-government data practitioners’ network and the Government Cyber Coordination Centre (GC3) Impact Coordination Group, as …
HM Treasury
25
Conclusion
59th Report - Ministry of Justice follo…
Acknowledged
We asked LAA why it had taken so long to detect the attack and to then take systems offline.48 LAA explained that the risk of a cyberattack on its systems had been rated as extremely high on MoJ’s risk registers since 2021. It told us that MoJ had subsequently provided …
Government response. The Chief Executive of the Legal Aid Agency (LAA) set out the initial lessons learned at the Committee evidence session in October 2025, including the need for senior leaders to ensure that cyber-vulnerabilities are fully understood and business continuity plans …
HM Treasury
26
Conclusion
59th Report - Ministry of Justice follo…
Acknowledged
LAA acknowledged that contingency measures it put in place to keep the legal aid system going placed additional burdens on providers, and that there are several lessons to be learned from the attack. This included, ensuring senior leaders understand risks in systems, ensuring longer term business continuity plans are in …
Government response. The Chief Executive of the Legal Aid Agency (LAA) set out the initial lessons learned at the Committee evidence session in October 2025, including the need for senior leaders to ensure that cyber-vulnerabilities are fully understood and business continuity plans …
HM Treasury
27
Conclusion
59th Report - Ministry of Justice follo…
We asked MoJ whether the public could have confidence that data stored across MoJ’s systems is safe, following the attack. MoJ stated that it has comprehensively reviewed all of its systems to understand where vulnerabilities lie. It stated that its review had given it a better understanding of where the …
HM Treasury