Legal Aid: Family Courts

Baroness Scotland of Asthal Excerpts

Monday 13th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I fully appreciate the noble and learned Baroness’s long and great experience in these fields. Certainly, some cases may be lengthened by the fact that neither side is legally advised, but the intention, as I said at the beginning, is to try to move a large number of such cases away from the court system into mediation and other forms of settlement. I fully accept her point that family disputes can become so bitter and intractable that resolution is very difficult, but that still does not argue the case for the taxpayer funding both sides in that kind of dispute.

[Baroness Scotland of Asthal]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a deputy High Court judge of the Family Division and chair of the All-Party Group on Domestic and Sexual Violence.

Does the Minister accept that, in cases of domestic violence, mediation is not appropriate and that the unequal nature of such relationships demands that there should be proper financial support for the litigants in those cases? Bearing that in mind, will he give an assurance that domestic violence cases will still receive appropriate public support?

[Lord McNally]

Domestic violence cases will get appropriate public support. In the arrangements for legal aid, a separate fund can be granted for special cases. Where legal aid falls outside the newly defined scope, I suggest that many of the areas suggested by the noble and learned Baroness will be good cases for special treatment.