Oral Answers to Questions

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Tuesday 31st October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

In prisons across the estate, including Kirkham, we are empowering governors by giving them control over their budgets and holding them accountable for training and education outcomes so that we enable them to deliver rehabilitation.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

The family courts are full of people representing themselves. The new President of the Supreme Court, Lady Justice Hale, has described the Government’s legal aid reforms as a “false economy”. Does not the Minister agree that restoring early legal aid would not only reduce the number of cases coming to court, but save court time? Will he guarantee that the legal aid review will include an analysis of the cost to the rest of the legal aid system that has resulted from the Government’s abolition of early legal aid?

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Dominic Raab)]

It is certainly right that we need to try to reduce the number of cases getting into the family courts in the first place, especially given that witnesses and others involved are often more traumatised by the process of going to court. The terms of reference for the legal aid review have been clearly set out, and there is wide scope for the issues that the hon. Lady mentions to be taken into account, but I will not pre-empt or prejudice what the review will look at right now.