Family Proceedings

(asked on 19th April 2022) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to his Department’s report, Assessing risk of harm to children and parents in private law children cases, published on 25 June 2020, when he expects the President of the Family Division to (a) promote the statement of practice recommended in Section 11.3 of the report and (b) incorporate that statement of practice into the Child Arrangements Programme.


Answered by
James Cartlidge Portrait
James Cartlidge
Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
This question was answered on 27th April 2022

In response to the Expert Panel’s report ‘Assessing Risk of Harm to Children and Parents in Private Law Children Cases’, the Government committed to working with all key partners in the family justice system to design a statement of practice for cases raising issues of domestic abuse or other risks of harm. This statement of practice will take into account provisions made in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, the recently published Tackling Domestic Abuse Plan, and learning from the development of the Integrated Domestic Abuse Court investigative approach pilots. Work on developing this statement will be progressed jointly by system leaders with oversight from the Family Justice Board. The Family Justice Board is jointly chaired by Ministers from the Ministry of Justice and Department for Education. Any decision to incorporate a new statement of practice into the Child Arrangements Programme will be made by the President of the Family Division.

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