Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Tuesday 25th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

The Government acted quickly to change the evidence arrangements in respect of domestic violence cases following a decision in February of this year, and the take-up on these cases has increased by about 30% since that time. With regard to exceptional case funding, again the number of applications and grants has increased markedly in the past year and indeed, according to the data available for the last quarter of 2015-16, the number of grants in respect of exceptional case funding has increased by 32%.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that, whereas in the past most of the litigants in person in the cases I tried over many years were men, who chose not to have legal aid, now they are both parties? Therefore, neither party has legal aid and the judge has no knowledge of what is the issue between them that can be properly litigated for the best interests of the child. This is a serious matter, which also leads to enormous delays and overuse of Cafcass.

[Lord Keen of Elie]

With particular reference to proceedings concerning children, I point out that legal aid remains available where most needed. Indeed, legal aid was provided for in over 54,000 proceedings last year under the special Children Act.