Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the potential implications for his Department's policies on the handling of domestic abuse cases in the family courts of the Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s October 2025 report entitled Everyday Business; and whether he plans to expand the roll-out of the Pathfinder court model in the South West.

The Government welcomes the publication of the Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s report “Everyday Business: Addressing domestic abuse and continuing harm through a family court review and reporting mechanism”. We are carefully considering the recommendations made in the report and will publish a full response shortly.

This Government recognises the impact that family court proceedings can have on children and adult survivors of domestic abuse, which is why we are prioritising the protection of domestic abuse survivors going through the family court. The includes the expansion of the Pathfinder programme, which promotes safeguarding and supports victims of domestic abuse through multi-agency collaboration and expert domestic abuse support.

Launched in Dorset and North Wales in February 2022, the Pathfinder model has since expanded to nine court areas, the most recent areas being the Black Country and Shropshire, Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent and Herefordshire and Worcestershire in November 2025. In January it will be rolled out to Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, the largest court area in the South West. This will mean around a quarter of relevant cases across England and Wales follow the model.

Further expansion of the model is being considered as part of the departmental allocations process which follows the latest Spending Review, and we are unable to pre-empt the outcome of this.