My Lords, I am pleased to have this opportunity to say a few words in support of this order. As was said about the previous instrument, this is a small but significant step forward in an area that has been beset with many difficulties. On the specific points about the recommendation to extend the order to cover special guardianship orders in private law proceedings, I agree that that is important.
One of the very interesting findings of the Select Committee, which the noble Lord, Lord Bach, has already referred to, was that there are now more special guardianship orders per year than there are children being adopted. That makes the whole area of special guardianship orders very important. While it is good news that they will be in scope of this instrument on private law proceedings, I very much echo the important remarks made by the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, about how desirable it would be for that to be extended to public law proceedings.
I will just make a couple of other general comments on the work that the Select Committee did to look into family law and the family justice system. First, I very much underline and endorse the comments that the noble Lord, Lord Bach, made about the very helpful evidence that the noble and learned Lord the Minister gave to the committee, which really informed the recommendations that we made throughout the chapter on family justice and particularly on legal aid itself. The point has come up several times this afternoon that one difficulty that the family courts face at the moment—and some of the reasons for the big backlog and delays—is the lack of any focus on early intervention.
Other witnesses before the committee included the current President of the Family Division and his immediate predecessor. His predecessor, Sir James Munby, argued—and we put in our report—that
“Money properly spent at an early stage usually pays dividends later on.”
I very much agree with that. Sir Andrew McFarlane, the current President of the Family Division, also made a number of comments on the importance of reinstating some legal aid within family law proceedings
and came up with a number of ideas that are in the report, including the idea of some form of professional who might be able to signpost applicants to mediation, to other forms of information about dispute resolution or to a lawyer, where that would be helpful.
I know that that goes wider than this particular statutory instrument, but we also heard from academic experts who really underlined the problems that the cuts to legal aid had made in the family courts and, frankly, how they had simply shifted costs to other parts of the court system, particularly where litigants in person, quite understandably, did not really understand how to represent themselves. It was taking up so much time from the court service officials and others, and another academic expert said to us that
“there are cases going to court that lawyers would have headed off. With legal aid, a lawyer would have said, ‘No, it’s not worth taking this to court’ or ‘Try mediation’”,
or, “No, you’ll lose”.
They are such important points and that is why we ended up, as the noble Lord, Lord Bach, has already said, recommending that the Government should urgently evaluate the impact of the removal of legal aid for most private family law cases and consider reinstating legal aid where that can improve the efficiency and quality of the family justice system. I was extremely encouraged when I heard the Minister’s remarks in the previous debate when he said—I think; I would be pleased if he could confirm it—that the Government are looking again at this whole area to see what impact reinstating legal aid in certain instances in the family courts would have. Just to underline that final point, the Select Committee thought that it would really improve efficiency, effectiveness and the quality of outcomes in the family justice system.
As I say, I support this statutory instrument. It is a small but important step forward and I hope that it also leads to consideration of wider improvements in the family justice system.
5.15 pm