My Lords, I shall be very quick, not least because the chairman of the committee mentioned by the Minister in his answer on the previous instrument is in her place, and she can talk with much more skill and expertise than I can. As a mere member of that committee, I remember well the Minister’s appearance before it; I do not think that it is flattering him too much to say that he was one of the star witnesses, not just on that day but during the whole of our proceedings. Indeed, the whole issue about early advice, as was clear from the Minister’s first reply, was clearly something that was a matter of concern to him.
Just as I supported the last instrument, I support this one. Again, in their comparatively small way, they are important improvements. One fault of LASPO, to put it mildly, was that too much of private family law was taken out of scope of legal aid. There have been
consequences since, and my guess is that the Government have come round to that view and I think that this order, in a small way, shows that. The Minister will know that the issue around domestic violence and the evidence needed was a matter of huge controversy for many years after LASPO came into force. It looks as if that is, finally, I hope, being put to bed.
All that I want to do, if I may—and I certainly do not want to take the thunder away from the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, who I hope will speak shortly—is to invite the Minister, if he has not already, to see the recommendations that we made in this area of the Select Committee’s report. We ended by saying, as one of our major recommendations:
“We recommend that the Government urgently evaluate the impact of the removal of legal aid for most private family law cases, considering where reinstating legal aid could help improve the efficiency and quality of the family justice system.”
We heard a huge amount of evidence over the months that showed that the lack of the possibility of legal aid in some private family law situations was very harmful to their early solving.