Children and Families Bill

Debate between Lord McNally and Baroness Jones of Whitchurch

Monday 21st October 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, I welcome the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin. I do not want anyone to be under any illusions: of course it is imperative that we tackle the court delays that have occurred in the system. We absolutely start from that point of view. We welcome all the steps that have been taken to modernise the family court system, including those to cut the time that is taken to deal with cases in the court. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, that it is a cultural issue as much as anything and we need to tackle that culture.

Our amendments were never intended to be an open door for judges just to sit on their hands and delay decisions. The intention was that in very particular cases, which people could see from the outset were going to take longer than 26 weeks, they would be able to make a decision and spell out and justify that decision at the time. It was not just an opportunity for a delay for the sake of it.

I am slightly concerned about how these eight-week extensions are going to work. For example, if a family is going through an intensive period of therapy, knowing that the case is going back to be reviewed every eight weeks is fantastically stressful and disruptive to them when they feel that they are making progress. The evidence shows that a lot of court decisions were delayed because the processes were not in place, reports were not received in time or the evidence was not there at the time. If you are then going to deal with a rolling eight-week review, there are all sorts of opportunities for things to go wrong and for the evidence simply not to be before the court at the right time. I would be interested to know how these eight-week extensions work in practice. We may well need to have a review of them in the short term.

My noble friend Lord Ponsonby said that my examples were not theoretical, and I thank him for confirming that. The point is that the families that we are talking about know from the outset that it is going to take time to turn their lives around. They know they are going on quite a long journey. To feel that that there is this time pressure hanging over them will have a negative impact on the whole process.

[Lord McNally]

The noble Baroness was asking about how the extensions would work in practice. The request to extend the timetable for proceedings will be considered during the proceedings, as far as possible, and should not result in additional hearings. I should also explain to the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, that there could be further extensions. On the right of appeal, I have an explanation in my brief but I would rather write to him to make sure that I get it right. There is a limited right of appeal. I am sorry for interrupting the noble Baroness.