Cross-Government Policy to Strengthen Families

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I take the opportunity to agree wholeheartedly with the sentiments expressed by my noble friend and indeed with those written by Lord Sacks. Indeed, as he said in another of his works:

“If we care about the common good, the cohesion of society and the support it gives to individuals, the family must be at the very heart of our concern.”

[Baroness Deech (CB) [V]]

I associate myself with those remarks. If the late and much-missed Lord Sacks were here, he would have spoken out about the huge financial and emotional costs of family breakdown and the rising divorce rate reported this morning. We have a real crisis now of children and money amid fears that the system will collapse under the huge weight of cases and lack of legal aid. Will the Minister heed the recommendations of the Family Solutions Group report What About Me? It highlighted the need to reduce aggressive litigation over money after divorce, which it said harms children’s welfare, by progressing the reform of our financial provision law to make it focus on support for children, less expensive and in line with nearly every other European country.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, I will certainly go away and look at the findings of that report. Of course, the Government have introduced no-fault divorces to try to reduce conflict through that process and make it more constructive, particularly with regard to the position of children in those circumstances.