A charity providing free legal advice to the disadvantaged will receive continued financial backing from Copeland Borough Council, at a time when they need it most.

Cumbria Law Centre's leader Pete Moran spoke at Copeland Borough Council's overview and scrutiny committee on Thursday to tell councillors about the charity's vital work.

The centre is a recipient of a grant by Copeland Council as it provides free legal advice to members of the public who may have been otherwise unable to afford it.

Mr Moran said: We, like most small charities, live somewhere around the edge of extinction most of the time and particularly these days because when the first law centre set up in 1970 out of an old butcher's shop in North Kensington, funding was relatively available, legal aid was easily available to anybody who could find a lawyer.

"Today, one would have thought things have progressed socially but actually today, around 90 per cent of the people who would have been eligible for legal aid in 1970 are not today and most of that fell out of eligibility in 2013."

Mr Moran explained the charity's work for residents of Copeland, in spite of all challenges.

"The thing that categorises our clients is that they are all very low income, the lowest incomes in the community. We never charge for what we do. Really our work is split between workers in low paid jobs and we work for a lot of disabled people who are unable to work, maybe they've had a benefits decision go against them because they've been unable to communicate or co-operate with DWP."

And their job could become all the more important.

"Clearly when Covid arrived, it was all terrible things that brought, some of the small silver linings included that people were protected from eviction, Local Authorities did a great deal of work to help people who were on the streets into accommodation.

"We see a lot of people who work in jobs which when you factor in the costs like the car, put them in a very precarious financial position and actually for some of them, furlough has been a more stable financial position without some of the costs but that's now coming to an end bringing with it, it's own disturbance as well."

After hearing Mr Moran's presentation, the councillors agreed to continue the grant and explore the potential to increase funding.

Councillor Sam Pollen asked how the cut to the £20 uplift of Universal Credit will impact the law centre's users.

Mr Moran said: "The difficulty of course with yesterday's benefits cut is there is no legal challenge to it. Where we tend to get involved is when poor decisions have been made in the context of the current regulations.

"A cut like that, we won't see that show up in benefits related work, we'll it show up in housing related work not long afterwards. Most of the people we see at court who are facing their home, earn most of their income. Some of them will have Universal Credit top-ups but most of them will earn most of their income and actually that's a much more precarious situation than if all of your housing costs are paid by benefits. It's much more prone to sudden change like losing your job or as we're seeing now, people coming back from furlough but to half the hours they had."

Advisers expect that combination of the cut to Universal Credit and rising fuel prices will see some families unable to pay bills and therefore reaching out for legal advice.

"I've been at the law centre for about 12 years now and I haven't seen anything that resembles this in terms of risk to people."