The Minister of Justice has revealed that $141.5 million of legal aid debt is outstanding as of 1 May 2020.

Andrew Little was responding to a written question by National’s spokesman on Justice, Mark Mitchell.

This is a slight drop from the $142.1 of debt due as at 1 July 2019.

In reply to another question from Mr Mitchell, the minister produced a table showing that, as at 1 April 2020, 26.7% of legal aid recipients have to repay their payments – which is down from 32.50% in February 2020.

In addition, to a related question Mr Little released a table showing that there were a total of 6,599 legal aid applications approved between 1 October 2019 and 1 May 2020.