Sentencing Reform/Legal Aid

Helen Grant Excerpts

Tuesday 21st June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

My apologies, Mr Speaker. Probably the problem with my political career is that I have not swivelled enough on occasions.

I believe mediation is a much better way of resolving all kinds of family and other disputes. The taxpayer will continue to pay for mediation; indeed, the mediators will be trained lawyers. Many people will take part in a much better process of resolving disputes. We are planning to increase the amount spent on mediation by £5 million, as the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) tells me, in order to make savings by reducing the amount of unnecessary adversarial litigation that we fund.

[Mrs Helen Grant (Maidstone and The Weald) (Con)]

Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that mediation is no panacea and that it can fail badly in family cases where there is an imbalance in power?

[Mr Clarke]

My hon. Friend has much greater expertise on the practice of family law than I do, so I rely on her and listen to her opinions with great attention. I have discussed these matters with her before. We have to get the balance right. At the moment, the generosity of the legal aid system compared with other systems is bringing more things into adversarial litigation than would otherwise be the case. Expansion of mediation is the better way of proceeding, and I hope that my hon. Friend will contribute her expertise to our development of the mediation system.