Legal aid spending, England and Wales
Spending on criminal and civil legal aid in England and Wales, £ thousand, each quarter since April to June 2011, from the Ministry of Justice's legal aid statistics.
Criminal legal aid
£291.8m
Q2 2026 · £310.0m on civil legal aid
Verified against source, 4 November 2026, 02:00 UTC- Criminal legal aid
- Civil legal aid
Source: Ministry of Justice. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Data table
61 periods, newest first
| Period | Criminal legal aid | Civil legal aid |
|---|---|---|
| Q2 2026 | £291.8m | £310.0m |
| Q1 2026 | £286.6m | £424.0m |
| Q4 2025 | £282.7m | £72.1m |
| Q3 2025 | £293.1m | £40.8m |
| Q2 2025 | £249.6m | £147.8m |
| Q1 2025 | £280.6m | £267.3m |
| Q4 2024 | £281.9m | £260.2m |
| Q3 2024 | £283.6m | £260.9m |
| Q2 2024 | £274.4m | £269.7m |
| Q1 2024 | £268.0m | £273.1m |
| Q4 2023 | £270.2m | £263.4m |
| Q3 2023 | £255.8m | £260.9m |
| Q2 2023 | £255.2m | £252.9m |
| Q1 2023 | £240.4m | £257.7m |
| Q4 2022 | £191.7m | £245.2m |
| Q3 2022 | £193.4m | £227.2m |
| Q2 2022 | £213.0m | £222.0m |
| Q1 2022 | £211.8m | £225.4m |
| Q4 2021 | £213.1m | £211.1m |
| Q3 2021 | £196.2m | £186.6m |
| Q2 2021 | £179.0m | £190.5m |
| Q1 2021 | £169.3m | £198.8m |
| Q4 2020 | £147.5m | £183.0m |
| Q3 2020 | £121.9m | £176.9m |
| Q2 2020 | £146.4m | £166.3m |
| Q1 2020 | £212.5m | £194.1m |
| Q4 2019 | £213.7m | £188.4m |
| Q3 2019 | £213.2m | £194.8m |
| Q2 2019 | £217.8m | £195.3m |
| Q1 2019 | £227.0m | £186.4m |
| Q4 2018 | £223.0m | £174.2m |
| Q3 2018 | £218.6m | £174.0m |
| Q2 2018 | £244.3m | £174.3m |
| Q1 2018 | £232.6m | £171.1m |
| Q4 2017 | £229.5m | £175.1m |
| Q3 2017 | £224.5m | £177.8m |
| Q2 2017 | £219.7m | £179.6m |
| Q1 2017 | £219.5m | £170.0m |
| Q4 2016 | £224.3m | £163.9m |
| Q3 2016 | £229.1m | £166.0m |
| Q2 2016 | £238.1m | £171.7m |
| Q1 2016 | £231.0m | £168.0m |
| Q4 2015 | £218.3m | £158.9m |
| Q3 2015 | £240.5m | £167.6m |
| Q2 2015 | £226.9m | £187.6m |
| Q1 2015 | £235.7m | £186.3m |
| Q4 2014 | £243.6m | £193.4m |
| Q3 2014 | £238.8m | £204.8m |
| Q2 2014 | £231.2m | £224.0m |
| Q1 2014 | – | £243.7m |
| Q4 2013 | – | £235.9m |
| Q3 2013 | – | £228.5m |
| Q2 2013 | – | £236.7m |
| Q1 2013 | – | £244.5m |
| Q4 2012 | – | £245.2m |
| Q3 2012 | – | £238.3m |
| Q2 2012 | – | £243.1m |
| Q1 2012 | – | £252.7m |
| Q4 2011 | – | £230.4m |
| Q3 2011 | – | £235.9m |
| Q2 2011 | – | £228.5m |
Source and licence
- Publisher
- Ministry of Justice
- Check it yourself
- https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/legal-aid-statistics
- Licence
- Open Government Licence v3.0 – Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
- Retrieved
- 4 November 2026, 01:57 UTC
- Raw files fetched
- https://www.gov.uk/api/content/government/statistics/legal-aid-statistics-quarterly-april-to-june-2026SHA-256 e00f320206a55afccaef4a4191a514416c3cfa01e965a6555c6c080c7bb7dda2 · 14,660 bytes
- https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6ab3aaff997a4b2950cceda2/accessible-legal-aid-statistics-tables-apr-jun-2026.odsSHA-256 0cb98985f4ac22812da7caef6a545cf1ceb6a77944f1b6ade96c72efb1d953f1 · 790,850 bytes
Verification
Verified against source, 4 November 2026, 02:00 UTC Run at 4 November 2026, 02:00 UTC; 122 of 122 figures matched the live source.
| Result | Check | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Pass | Provenance recorded | Ministry of Justice; Open Government Licence v3.0; retrieved 2026-11-04T01:57:11Z; 2 raw file(s) |
| Pass | Raw files match recorded SHA-256 | 2 of 2 files intact |
| Pass | Re-parsing raw files reproduces figures | 122 of 122 figures and the headline reproduced |
| Pass | Figures are finite numbers | 122 figures, 0 invalid |
| Pass | Live source matches every figure | 122 of 122 figures match exactly after downloading 2 source file(s) again (2 byte-identical); the headline matches |
| Pass | GOV.UK table is current | latest period 2026-06-30 ended 127 days before retrieval (limit 200), from Accessible Legal aid statistics England and Wales tables Apr to Jun 2026 |
| Not run | Second official route | the second route is not compared: the Legal Aid Agency's main data CSV gives these schemes' spending by different lines (no crime higher total matched on 26 October 2026, 0 of 61 quarters), so it is not a route to these totals |
| Pass | Criminal legal aid's parts add up | 44 of 44 cases of Table 1_1's quarters with every part given sum to its total, all unrounded £ thousand within 0.001 (44 exactly); 17 quarters leave a part or the total blank ('..') |
| Pass | Civil legal aid's parts add up | 53 of 53 cases of Table 1_2's quarters with every part given sum to its total, all unrounded £ thousand within 0.001 (53 exactly); 8 quarters leave a part or the total blank ('..') |
| Pass | Source page answers | https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/legal-aid-statistics – HTTP 200 |
Notes
- Total crime and total civil expenditure as Tables 1.1 and 1.2 give them, in £ thousand, unrounded. Criminal legal aid pays for advice at police stations and representation in the magistrates' courts (crime lower) and in the Crown Court and above (crime higher); civil legal aid for legal help, mediation and representation in family and other civil cases, less the costs an opponent meets. A blank is a quarter whose figure the tables do not give yet ('..').
- Quarters are the Ministry of Justice's, shown by the calendar months they cover. Recent quarters are revised as late claims come in.