Family Justice System

8. What steps he is taking to reform the family justice system.

The Government are reforming the family justice system to better support families and children. We are rolling out the successful child-focused courts nationally. That means that in Northamptonshire, Coventry and Warwickshire, Northumbria, north Durham, Cleveland and south Durham, Lancashire, Cumbria, York and North Yorkshire, and Cheshire and Merseyside, you have a child-focused court coming to a court near you. We are developing a cross-system family justice strategy and legislating for new child safety measures that ensure child welfare continues to be prioritised.

When family courts decide that care is to be split between parents 50:50, we might expect that fair financial arrangements follow. However, when courts make that ruling, and the Child Maintenance Service makes decisions based on which parent is the recipient of child benefit, one parent often finds they are significantly worse off than the other. Will Ministers have a word with their colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions to ensure that the justice system and the CMS work more closely to achieve financial fairness for both parents in cases where courts rule for 50:50 care splits?

In individual cases, how those financial settlements are made is a matter for the judiciary. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that, as in so many cases, the family court is downstream of decisions that have been made elsewhere, and it is quite right that there should be join-up between areas of Government. I am happy to take away his direction that we should liaise with DWP colleagues to ensure that child maintenance is addressed fairly.

Will the Minister reassure me that we remain committed to repealing in this Parliament the presumption of contact in family courts, to bring full justice to the 67 children murdered at the hands of abusive ex-partners with whom contact should never have been granted?

We are resolute and committed to repealing the presumption of parental involvement in the Children Act 1989. The campaigning efforts of the likes of Claire Throssell have been little short of heroic, and we will redouble our efforts to ensure that the repeal of that presumption comes about through the Courts and Tribunals Bill.