Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the adherence of judges in Family Courts to Practice Directions; and what steps he is taking to help ensure adherence to those Directions.

The Government has not made any overall assessment of the adherence of Family Court judges to Practice Directions. The independence of the judiciary is a fundamental principle in the constitutional separation of powers and the rule of law, and it would be inappropriate for ministers to comment on individual judicial decision making or the individual adherence of family court judges to Practice Directions. In 2019, the government announced a Call for Evidence to consider how effectively the family courts respond to allegations of domestic abuse and other risk of harm to children and parent victims in private law children proceedings, overseen by an Expert Panel. This call for evidence and the final report of the Expert Panel considered, amongst other things how Practice Direction 12J, Practice Direction 3AA and Part 3A of the Family Procedure Rules were being applied.

The Government is now working to deliver the commitments set out in the Implementation Plan published in response to the final report. As part of this, we are working with the Domestic Abuse Commissioner and Victims Commissioner to establish a monitoring and reporting mechanism to better understand what is happening in private law proceedings involving domestic abuse.