The Criminal Legal Aid (Remuneration) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2026 were made on 1 July 2026, laid before Parliament on 3 July 2026 and will come into force on 28 July 2026. Signed by Sarah Sackman for the Ministry of Justice under the Lord Chancellor's authority, the instrument makes targeted amendments to the fee rules for Crown Court advocacy in legally aided cases in England and Wales. The regulations amend Schedule 1 to the Criminal Legal Aid (Remuneration) Regulations 2013, which contains the Advocates' Graduated Fee Scheme. That schedule sets out the graduated, fixed and miscellaneous fees payable to advocates for Crown Court proceedings.
One amendment sits in paragraph 18(2)(a), which deals with fees for wasted preparation. The instrument replaces the existing five-day threshold with a two-day threshold. The immediate effect is to reduce the minimum trial length that must be met before an advocate can apply for this fee. In practice, that broadens access to the payment in shorter Crown Court trials. Where preparation has been undertaken and later becomes wasted, cases that previously fell below the five-day threshold may now qualify once the trial length reaches two days.
The second amendment concerns paragraph 18A, which governs the additional preparation fee. The regulations remove the exclusion that had prevented the fee being claimed where a case concluded with a guilty plea. The effect is to bring guilty plea cases within scope where the other conditions of the scheme are met. The same provision also increases the fee from £62 to £81. As the Explanatory Note on legislation.gov.uk makes clear, this is not only a rise in the amount payable but also a widening of the circumstances in which the payment may be claimed.
Regulation 3 sets a clear application rule. The amendments apply only to services provided following a determination under section 16 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 where that determination is made on or after 28 July 2026. That means the trigger is the date of the representation determination, not simply the hearing date or the fact that work continues beyond commencement. For solicitors' firms, chambers and billing teams, the section 16 determination date will be the key reference point when deciding whether the amended fees can be claimed.
The legal authority for the instrument is drawn from sections 2(3) and 41 of the 2012 Act. The regulations extend to England and Wales only, reflecting the territorial reach of the criminal legal aid framework being amended. This is a narrow amending instrument rather than a wider redesign of criminal legal aid remuneration. It leaves the broader structure of the Advocates' Graduated Fee Scheme in place and instead makes two precise adjustments within Schedule 1: one to wasted preparation and one to the additional preparation fee.
For practitioners, the changes are technical but financially relevant. Lowering the wasted preparation threshold from five trial days to two should bring more shorter trials within range of the fee, while allowing the additional preparation fee in guilty plea cases recognises that substantial work may still be required even where a case does not proceed to a contested trial. The increase from £62 to £81 is modest on an individual case basis, but it still changes claim values and should be reflected in internal guidance, case management systems and fee-checking processes before 28 July 2026.
The Explanatory Note states that no full impact assessment has been produced because no, or no significant, impact on the private, voluntary or public sectors is foreseen. That suggests the Ministry of Justice views the measure as a contained adjustment within the existing payment scheme rather than a change expected to produce wider sector effects. Even so, the instrument will matter in day-to-day Crown Court legal aid work. From 28 July 2026, the operative changes are clear: advocates may seek a wasted preparation fee after a two-day trial rather than a five-day trial, and the additional preparation fee rises to £81 and can be claimed in guilty plea cases falling within the amended rules.