Question
Asked by
To ask Her Majesty's Government how much the Northern Ireland Office spent on legal fees in each of the past five years. [HL5703]
The Northern Ireland Office (NIO), including the Public Prosecution Service Northern Ireland but excluding its agencies and executive NDPBs, has spent the following on legal fees in the past five years:
Year £ 2004-05 £6,977,043 2005-06 £7,840,223 2006-07 £11,396,639 2007-08 £12,030,884 2008-09 £8,643,821
Legal fees for the NIO rose substantially in 2006-07, mainly due to expenditure by the Public Prosecution Service on the Omagh bomb trial, and also on the trial of James Fulton and his associates, which proved to be the longest murder trial in Northern Ireland history. These two cases alone accounted for an increase in legal expenditure of £2 million. Scale fees for counsel increased in April 2006, the first increase in a number of years, and this also contributed to overall increase in 2006-07.
A large case which carried forward into 2007-08 contributed to the increase in this year.
There may be some associated costs included within these figures that are not legal fees but these could only be disaggregated at disproportionate cost.