Meg Munn
Main Page: Meg Munn (Labour (Co-op) - Sheffield, Heeley)Department Debates - View all Meg Munn's debates with the Ministry of Justice
(13 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Djanogly
In public family law, legal aid will remain. In private family law, legal aid will be removed, because we believe fundamentally that the taxpayer should not have to pay for a regular divorce, a contact application or splitting up family assets. People should go to mediation to sort out their problems among themselves—not at the cost of the taxpayer.
Meg Munn (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab/Co-op)
I have an example of a case in Sheffield where a 62-year-old grandmother used legal aid to go through the processes she needed to go through to care for her two grandchildren, who were otherwise at risk of going into care. Will the Minister assure me that grandparents in such a situation will be able to do that in future? Otherwise, the cost to the state of caring for small children will be considerably more than that of the legal aid.
Mr Djanogly
What I can tell the hon. Lady is that we do not propose to remove public family law legal aid, and that includes cases in which the state wants to take away someone’s children.