Andy Slaughter
MP for Hammersmith and Chiswick · Labour · United Kingdom
“I welcome the Bill, and thank the Government for introducing it and bringing it back to the House before the summer recess. It is the result of years of committed campaigning, led by the families of the victims and survivors of Hillsborough.”
“I know that case means a huge amount to the hon. Lady as a constituency MP, and I thank her for all the work she does on the Justice Committee. I think we have only begun to scratch the surface. This Bill will be a transforming piece of legislation. I will make one final comment.”
“This would be a new, independent public body that collated, analysed and followed up on the conclusions and recommendations made after official investigations into deaths and state failings, in order to improve oversight and implementation of them.”
“I think I have taken enough time, but I thank the Member for that intervention. This afternoon, the Justice Committee signed off a new major report on legal aid, which will be published on Friday. Those who are interested can read more there.”
“In the time that I have, I will focus my remarks on clauses 1 to 16, which create a new appeals body for immigration and asylum cases known as the independent immigration appeals authority.”
“From that visit, our diagnosis was that these are operational problems. There are two key questions for the House: will the IIAA fix the problems with the current system, and will it be truly independent from the Home Office?”
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“I appreciate the way in which the Minister has responded on the national oversight mechanism, but if this is to have teeth, and if it is to deal with both inquiries and inquests, do we not need a separate public body? It is a substantial piece of work.”
“This would be a new, independent public body that collated, analysed and followed up on the conclusions and recommendations made after official investigations into deaths and state failings, in order to improve oversight and implementation of them. At present, there is a critical gap in accountability between the issuing of a report or recommendation and its eventual implementation. It can be extremely difficult for bereaved families, victims and the general public to get information on what changes have actually been made following the identification of failings.”
“I welcome the Bill, and thank the Government for introducing it and bringing it back to the House before the summer recess. It is the result of years of committed campaigning, led by the families of the victims and survivors of Hillsborough. Many of the worst corporate miscarriages of justice, from infected blood to Grenfell, would have been exposed years or even decades ago, had the Bill become law sooner. We should celebrate a landmark piece of legislation that—like the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Freedom of Information Act 2000, introduced under the last Labour Government—gives power to the citizen and makes the state accountable. I will focus my remarks on two new clauses that I have tabled, which build on growing calls for a national oversight mechanism.”
“I know that case means a huge amount to the hon. Lady as a constituency MP, and I thank her for all the work she does on the Justice Committee. I think we have only begun to scratch the surface. This Bill will be a transforming piece of legislation. I will make one final comment. Several Members have welcomed, as I do, the huge increase in the provision of legal aid that will come, but for that to be effective, we have to look at legal aid rates and the availability of legal aid practitioners. Simply having the funding available does not ensure that there will be representation and equality of arms, which I think we all wish for.”
“I think I have taken enough time, but I thank the Member for that intervention. This afternoon, the Justice Committee signed off a new major report on legal aid, which will be published on Friday. Those who are interested can read more there. In conclusion, this is a landmark piece of legislation, which we should all welcome, and I commend it to the House.”
“I do not see that at the moment with what is in the Bill.”
“It is also fair to assume that non-expert adjudicators will take more time to hear cases than judges would, given the complexities of asylum cases. There is insufficient legal aid available, which is likely to lengthen hearings as well. On the second point—the issue of independence—the Home Secretary says that the IIAA will be independent from the Home Office and puts the word in its title, but the Bill contains provisions for the Home Secretary to expedite cases, to set the length of time for cases, and to appoint the chair and chief executive. The IIAA is effectively a quango over which the Home Secretary has substantial control. I cannot do further justice to the issue in the time available, but I would like to see that this body, if it is set up, is independent and able to make sensible and judicial decisions.”
“From that visit, our diagnosis was that these are operational problems. There are two key questions for the House: will the IIAA fix the problems with the current system, and will it be truly independent from the Home Office? On the first point, while I do not have time to give all the figures, a big part of the problem is the poor quality of initial decision making, with 45% of decisions being overturned. How will a body staffed by members of the public, as opposed to judges and legal experts, result in a reduction of errors in a complex area of law? A further risk created by an increase in errors is that it may shift the current backlog in the first-tier tribunal to the upper tribunal. It is not clear from the impact assessment accompanying the Bill that enough thought has been given to the potential impact on the upper tribunal.”
“In the time that I have, I will focus my remarks on clauses 1 to 16, which create a new appeals body for immigration and asylum cases known as the independent immigration appeals authority. It will be staffed by non-lawyers or members of the public and will perform much of the work currently done by the first-tier tribunal immigration and asylum chamber. The backlogs in the FTT have reached around 60 weeks for cases to be heard—11 weeks longer than a year ago. It is vital, however, that such reforms are properly thought out and resourced. Last week, the Justice Committee took evidence from experts in the sector. The Committee has taken a keen interest in the proposals since they were announced last year and has visited the first-tier tribunal. We saw a system under great operational strain, but with judges doing a good and efficient job.”
“Sir Brian Leveson made 180 recommendations, very few of which concerned juries. His review covered the whole criminal justice system, including the CPS. The Government have never responded to Sir Brian’s review, and they have never said how each of those recommendations will be treated and how they will contribute to reducing the backlog. Are they still planning to do that, and if so, when?”
“I really do appreciate the steps the Government have taken. I particularly appreciate the recognition of the state of Palestine, because the embassy is in my constituency, and I was very proud to be there to see the flag raised. I want the Minister to be part of the almost total consensus here today, but that does mean being unambiguous. The problem with saying, “There are these problems,” or, “We can advise and encourage companies, but we cannot force them,” is that it is saying it is a bit legal or a bit illegal. We want a decisive view on this: we want settlement goods to be banned.”
“My hon. Friend mentions the Mayor of London, who has made substantial strides, but I refer him to the matter of emissions from buses and the only partial electrification of the fleet in London and elsewhere. Pollutants from diesel buses are a continuing problem, especially when buses are allowed to idle at bus stands close to residential property. That is of particular concern to my constituent Kate Hollis, whose 12-year-old son, Jack, tragically died from bone cancer, the spread of which the family believes was caused by pollutants from a bus terminus next to their house in my constituency. Does my hon. Friend, who knows a great deal about these issues and who, like me, is a London MP, share my and the Hollis family’s concern that electrification is going too slowly, with potentially dangerous consequences?”
“Advice to UK businesses and complaints to Israeli Ministers are not just inadequate but create ambiguities, because they suggest that the UK Government are prepared to speak but not to act. When Netanyahu previously threatened the annexation of parts of the west bank, we made it clear what the consequences would be. Will the Minister do the same now, and say that in the event of any move towards E1, there will be a comprehensive trade and investment ban?”
“I wish the Lord Chancellor luck with the recruitment campaign—I wish him luck generally—but even if he is successful, those magistrates will be newly recruited, and he is also asking magistrates to try much longer and more complex cases by increasing their sentencing powers. Those two things do not really square up. Is his solution to recruit a lot more district judges and therefore have a lot more judge-only courts in the magistrates court as well as the Crown court?”
“I would encourage the incoming Prime Minister—whosoever that may be—to consider carefully the Committee’s critique of the Bill, but also to be conscious that reform is desperately needed and cannot simply be kicked down the road to avoid difficult decisions.”
“It is against that backdrop of an ever-increasing backlog that the Government introduced the Courts and Tribunals Bill earlier this year. Among other measures, the Bill would shift more cases to the magistrates courts and reduce the use of jury trials. The Justice Committee recently published an extensive report on the Bill, in which we warned that capacity in magistrates courts is unlikely to expand quickly enough to meet this increased level of demand. Our report highlighted the long-standing reductions in the number of magistrates and legal advisers, and described the recruitment target of having 21,000 magistrates in place by 2029 as unrealistic. The Courts and Tribunals Bill has been carried over to this Session, but a date for its consideration on Report has not yet been set.”
“The PAC report stated that the vacancy rate for probation officers increased from 14% in 2021 to 21% in 2025, with probation officers working above capacity for several years. The system has been running hot for an unsustainable period, which impacts on the hard-working probation staff. That cannot be underplayed and I hope to see improvements in this area soon. The additional funding for the Courts and Tribunals Service is driven by pay increases and an increase in the uncapped sitting days in the Crown courts, which are necessary to recruit and retain staff and to address the backlog. The Crown court backlog continues to sit at around 80,000 cases. The uncapping of sitting days for 2026-27 is a welcome step and has already had a positive impact, but it is widely recognised that it is not enough on its own.”
“As I mentioned earlier, by 2028-29, the Probation Service will receive an additional £700 million per year to support reforms resulting from the Sentencing Act, including a significant increase in the use of electronic monitoring or tagging. That investment is a substantial and welcome increase for a service that has been under strain for many years. I have raised repeatedly my concerns about the performance of Serco in its provision of the tagging service, and the Justice Committee will closely monitor Serco’s performance moving forward. I commend the work of the Public Accounts Committee in looking at the probation service and the report it published in February this year.”
“The Government’s continued investment in creating new prison places is necessary, but alongside the provisions of the Sentencing Act, some of which have now come into force, I hope that we can begin to see a stabilisation and eventual reduction of the prison population and an improvement in conditions there. I note that deaths in prison custody decreased by 12% from the previous 12 months up to March this year, but any non-natural death in prison is a tragedy. I direct Members to our reports on drugs in prisons and rehabilitation in prisons, which have been tagged on the Order Paper as relevant documents for this debate.”
“The prison population stands at over 87,000 and it is predicted to increase, with the most recent set of projections forecasting 91,400 by September 2026, and between 97,400 and 102,100 by September 2029. These are the highest numbers we will ever have seen in UK prisons. Already, 25% of prisoners live in overcrowded conditions. As we have heard, overcrowding reduces safety, increases the likelihood of self-harm and violence, and impairs the rehabilitative programme that prisons are able to offer. The Justice Committee has focused much of its work over the past year on the endemic drugs crisis in our prisons and the poor rehabilitative offer available for prisoners.”
“The main estimates for 2026-27 confirm that the MOJ’s day-to-day spending is set to increase by £757 million, or 6.5%, which includes further investment in the Prison and Probation Service, the Courts and Tribunals Service and the Legal Aid Agency. I will come to each of those areas in turn shortly. The MOJ’s capital spending is also set to increase by almost £60 million, or 2.6%. I note that the MOJ anticipates drawing down further funding at the supplementary estimates to support its prison capacity programme, and that must be right. This year’s main estimates allocate over half its day-to-day spending to the Prison and Probation Service. This is aimed at investment in staffing, opening of additional prison places and paying for prison contract costs.”
“I noted at that point the positive settlement that the MOJ had received as part of the spending review, including a £7 billion investment aimed at delivering 14,000 new prison places by 2031 and £700 million a year for the Probation Service by 2028-29, in the light of the Sentencing Act 2026 reforms. Although I welcome many of the actions that the Government have taken over the past year to reform our criminal justice system, there is still a great deal of progress to be made, as those targets indicate. The Ministry of Justice suffered years of budget cuts during the years of Tory austerity, meaning that when this Government were elected in 2024, MOJ expenditure was 11% less in real terms than it was in 2010.”
“I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting time for this important debate. The debate follows a joint application by the Chairs of the Justice, Public Accounts and Home Affairs Committees. There is cross-Committee concern for our criminal justice system, as the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, the hon. Member for North Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown), has just said. I thank my fellow Chairs for their focus on the issue in its widest sense. As Chair of the Justice Committee, I will focus my remarks on the estimates for the Ministry of Justice. A year ago, the Justice Committee was granted a similar debate on the spending of the Ministry of Justice.”
“Let me emphasise how important it is that we have a properly functioning criminal justice system if the public are to continue to have faith in our institutions and political system. I implore the incoming Administration not to lose the focus on reforming the criminal justice system. The current system is not fit for purpose, and we cannot afford not to act.”
“As I said last year, I was surprised to see that the spending review did not include a specific funding allocation for the Legal Aid Agency, with the only reference to it being in the context of potential efficiency savings that the MOJ will make in the review period. Continuing investment in legal aid is essential to the proper functioning of the criminal justice system and efforts to tackle the Crown court backlog. Access to justice for those who rely on legal aid is reliant on a well-funded and properly functioning Legal Aid Agency, and we are all aware of the difficulties it has had over the past year. The Justice Committee will soon publish a report focused on legal aid as part of a wider access to justice inquiry.”
“I ask him to agree with me that there will be some benefit, but I agree that it has not been calculated as yet. Let me pick up what I was saying. A malfunctioning courts system is bad for victims, bad for defendants and bad for faith in our justice system, which has ramifications for our democracy. I will conclude by touching on the Legal Aid Agency, which affects civil and criminal legal aid. Legal Aid Agency spending will rise by 10% year on year. That is driven by Government reforms that will result in higher billing in civil representation schemes, fee uplifts in crime lower schemes and additional operating costs.”
“First, one has to look at the Leveson package—the two volumes that Sir Brian Leveson has put together over 1,000 pages. That has 180 recommendations, a very small number of which deal with this issue. It is undeniable that it will be one factor that has an effect. Where I agree with the hon. Gentleman is that it is very difficult to calculate at this stage what effect it will have. The changes to jury trials—not the abolition of jury trials—are moving the line so that some more cases will be dealt with at a summary level. As I think the hon. Gentleman knows, I prefer to look at the practical problems there may be in replacing some jury trials, with the additional pressures on the magistrates court. As a matter of principle, we can differ; as a matter of practice, I suspect he would agree with me.”
“We recognise the need to reform our criminal justice system and commend the Government for commissioning the Leveson review and proposing comprehensive reforms. We hope, however, that they will take note of our recommendations, which we believe would improve the Bill while maintaining the core values of justice and fairness in our criminal justice system.”
“The Bill proposes to expand the role of both the magistrates court and judge-only Crown court proceedings, while reducing the role of juries. The Lammy review, in 2017, concluded that juries are one of the few areas of the criminal justice system where black and ethnic minority defendants do not face disproportionate outcomes. It is shocking that only 1% of Crown court judges are black, a figure that has not changed since 2015. This has serious implications for the trust that black defendants may have in the bench division, where judges will sit alone. We recommend that the Government take action to improve progression routes to the senior judiciary, and that they set a clear national target to achieve a representative judiciary and magistracy by 2035.”
“Reliance on likely sentence length as the sole criteria will mean that defendants with previous convictions are more likely to face a jury trial than those without, and that children are less likely to face a jury than adults accused of the same offence. We recommend that children should be exempt from being tried at the bench division. We also raise concerns that the predicted 20% time saving of judge-only trials, so heavily relied on in both the Bill and Sir Brian’s review, lacks sufficient evidential basis. Finally, on equality, we share the concerns of many in the justice sector around the potential equality impacts of the Bill, particularly in relation to race. An unreformed justice system already perpetuates a range of inequalities, and we do not feel that the Government have tackled those head on through the Bill.”
“While many cases will be straightforward, the allocation process could consume a significant amount of court time and judicial resource overall. We think the three-year threshold for deciding which sort of trial a defendant gets will need some more consideration. At present, when magistrates decide whether a case should be allocated to the Crown court, they consider the length of the potential sentence, but they also can consider the circumstances of the case. Should the Crown court not also be able to say that a case is likely to have a sentence of less than three years, but should still have a jury trial? We conclude that the allocation process as currently designed is likely to be complex, time consuming and will lead to unintended consequences.”
“We recommend that any changes to magistrates appeals should be introduced only once recording of all magistrates court proceedings has been introduced and is proven to be operating effectively. The main public and professional criticisms of the Bill have been around judge-only trials, and the creation of a Crown court bench division. Our report focuses more on the question of whether that will work in practice rather than the principles of the reform. We decided the proposal to introduce judge-only trials hangs on allocation to a jury trial or the bench division. That will be done by an assessment, at the first hearing in the Crown court, as to whether the defendant would receive a sentence of three years or more.”
“They are resolved quickly and with a high success rate, suggesting that the right to a full rehearing plays an important role in correcting wrongful outcomes. The Bill provides for the introduction of audio recording in magistrates courts for trial and sentencing. This would allow for an accurate record of proceedings to be transcribed in support of an appeal. Several submissions we received raised concerns about the scale of such an undertaking and the practicalities of equipping magistrates courts with the necessary facilities. It would benefit no one if changes were introduced before recording systems were properly functioning or if they subsequently failed.”
“Otherwise, every time there is a peak in prisoner numbers, the Government will shift magistrates’ sentencing powers down to six or 12 months and then back up to 18 or 24 when they stabilise again. On appeals from the magistrates court, we recognise the Government’s concern that, as more cases are retained, unmanaged growth in appeal volumes could place additional pressure on the Crown court. We also accept that the current automatic right to a full rehearing can, in some cases, place a stressful burden on victims and witnesses. However, appeals currently represent a small and declining proportion of overall Crown court receipts, with only 0.4% of magistrates court decisions appealed in 2025.”
“As part of that, we recommend that the Government should significantly increase the number of salaried district judges. They must also ensure that the pay of legal advisers matches comparable legal roles in the public sector. The Government seek the authority to increase magistrates’ sentencing powers to 18 months or even 24 months—double what they are now. Until recently the maximum was six months, and then from October 2024, 12 months. Sir Brian said that this should be set permanently at 12 months and that the Government should not be able to vary it at will. We say at the least that any change should be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure and debated in Parliament.”
“First, let me address the impact on magistrates courts, which will significantly increase owing to the removal of the right for defendants to elect for Crown court trial and by increasing magistrates’ sentencing powers. Our principal finding on this point is that we are not convinced that the magistrates courts will be able to cope. It seems unrealistic to propose that 7,000 magistrates can be recruited in three years so that there will be 21,000 magistrates by 2029. Previous recruitment campaigns have fallen far short of their targets. Retention also remains a persistent challenge and there is a chronic shortage of suitably qualified legal advisers. The Government must demonstrate, in more detail than they have done so far, that expanding capacity in the magistrates court is deliverable.”
“The Government also declined to allow the Justice Committee to conduct pre-legislative scrutiny. We instead launched our inquiry a matter of days after the Bill’s publication, as we felt this landmark piece of legislation required proper, in-depth parliamentary scrutiny. We know it is hard for the Government to change course once a Bill is introduced, but this is an area where the Government should have enabled more parliamentary input before pushing forward, particularly given that the Bill’s provisions will not come into force until March 2028 at the earliest. Our report is analytical, but crucially it is constructive and aims to improve rather than dismiss what the Government have proposed. It covers all clauses of the Bill dealing with reform of the criminal courts, but I will focus my remarks on a few key areas.”
“Last Wednesday, the Justice Committee published a report setting out our critique of the Courts and Tribunals Bill, based upon three oral evidence sessions and over 130 written submissions. I take this opportunity to thank all those who contributed to the report, in particular Committee members of all parties, many of whom are here today, and of course our secretariat. Our report makes recommendations to improve the Bill and draws attention to some of its unintended consequences, and it aims to inform further scrutiny of the Bill in both Houses. I note that we do not yet have a confirmed date for the Bill’s return to this House on Report. I hope we will have that soon. The Government introduced the Bill without publishing a formal response to part 1 of Sir Brian Leveson’s review.”
“I thank the Backbench Business Committee for making time for this statement. The Courts and Tribunals Bill was introduced in February as a response to the Crown court crisis. There were over 80,000 outstanding cases as of December 2025, with some trials being listed into 2030. That harms victims, defendants and witnesses alike. We recognise the urgency of that crisis and acknowledge that continuing with the status quo is not an option. In response to the crisis, the Government commissioned Sir Brian Leveson to conduct his independent review of criminal courts, which has been published in two extensive parts and makes 180 recommendations to address the crisis and reduce the backlog. The Government’s Bill has been informed by Sir Brian’s review, although it deviates from his recommendations in some key areas.”
“They are being asked to do a huge amount of heavy lifting, and it is only fair that the Government keep us up to date on progress.”
“The hon. Member is right to mention that there was a dissenting report, which was not approved by the Committee. Other members may wish to raise that issue. From my point of view, it was reassuring that the analysis in both reports was very similar. I hope that I correctly reflected some of those concerns in my statement. What the outcome of those concerns should be may have been a matter of difference between different parties, but that all adds to the spice of life on Select Committees. I agree with the hon. Member on magistrates. There has been so much attention on the issue of judge-only trials, which is crucial, but the Bill will succeed or fail on recruitment and the type and nature of magistrates court proceedings.”
“My hon. Friend is an assiduous member of the Committee. In the same week that the Committee published this report, we published our report on the pre-appointment hearing for the new Judicial Appointments Commission chair. We feel strongly that the Government need to look at judicial appointments and progression, because it is clearly not working at the moment. It undermines the credibility of a judiciary that we all take huge pride in if they are not reflective of the population at large. That was true before the Bill; it is even more true after it.”
“The hon. Lady is also an assiduous member of the Committee, and I appreciate what she said about important respects in which the Government, without evidencing the reasons, have departed from Leveson—for example, on whether magistrates should sit with judges in the bench division. She makes a good point: because the Government have deviated from what Leveson recommended, there is a narrow window between what can happen in the magistrates court and what is left for the Crown court bench division to do. The Government will have to look at that again. Some Members may think that that is a good thing, because they are not supportive of the Crown court bench division, but we have to have a system that has credibility and works seamlessly.”
“I rely on the hon. Gentleman to attend these statements, so that he can make that point, as he has done during every Justice Committee statement on the Floor of the House. He is right that, even though the Bill will apply in England and Wales, the lessons can be learned elsewhere. I will undertake to go back to my officials and ensure that that work is done.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for all his work as Chair of the APPG and with the contaminated blood community. On the issue he has just raised, there is growing support for a national oversight mechanism to monitor and intervene when recommendations from public inquiries are being ignored or misapplied. Does he agree that it is particularly important in the case of contaminated blood, where there have been so many false starts and delays? Although the Minister has announced a new mechanism to raise concerns about how compensation schemes function, does he agree that such monitoring must be statutory and self-resourced to ensure fair and timely compensation for victims and their families?”
“But I do not believe that that is or should be the case with the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill. It is an exception because it received the endorsement of the House of Commons on Second and Third Reading because of successive polls of the public. We are all doubtful about the veracity of polls, but when one has a very substantial majority of people over many years, we are wrong to ignore the will of public in that way. The Government are allowing passage of the Bill, so it is only the filibuster in the Lords, by a small number of peers, that has harpooned this piece of legislation thus far. Frankly, I would respect the Bill’s opponents if they were clear and up front that they were using procedural means to talk out the Bill because of their position on it, rather than pretending that the amendments tabled are serious.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central (Lewis Atkinson) for his excellent opening speech. In the 21 years that I have been entering the private Members’ Bill ballot, my name has been drawn out once, in 2018. My Freedom of Information (Extension) Bill—a very fine piece of legislation that I will have to tell hon. Members about another time—was talked out by a Conservative Back Bencher who tried to console me afterwards by saying that he supported my Bill, but wanted to make sure that the Bill after mine was talked out properly. It is therefore right to say that private Members’ Bills are fragile things, are often subject to headwinds, most commonly because the Government do not want the Bill to proceed, and are susceptible to sabotage.”
“There have been legitimate concerns about safeguarding in the Bill. They have been debated and provided for, and I do not believe that a sufficient alternative has been provided. In conclusion, there is a credibility problem here for Parliament. Our constituents will look at us and say, “We have asked you to do something and you have failed to deliver it, despite the fact that you have the ability, the will and the mechanisms to do it.” Let us just get on with it now, and let us use the Parliament Act as it is intended to be used.”
“I am coming to that. I will not take up all my time, because I suspect that we all know each other’s minds on this matter and are unlikely to change them. We need another vote so that the Bill can progress, and there is a mechanism in the Parliament Act for that to happen, which is a perfectly legitimate and logical next step. I think that there is arrogance in the way the Bill has been opposed, because it restricts the agency of the individual and seeks to take control of their lives. I am quite surprised that some Members, particularly those who come from more individualistic traditions than I do, are prepared to see that. It also increases the suffering of our fellow citizens. I think those are moral and constitutional issues; I do not believe that state actors should be able to constrain the freedom of the individual.”
“In the case of private law children proceedings, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s office, which gathered and analysed data from three court sites in England and Wales throughout 2024, found overwhelming evidence of domestic abuse, identifying it in 73% of the hearings observed. As I think the hon. Member for Wokingham said earlier, 87% in the sample of cases reviewed had reference to domestic abuse, which has led the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, Dame Nicole Jacobs, to describe domestic abuse as “the everyday business of the family courts”. There are very significant numbers of these cases. In 2025 alone, more than 55,000 private law children cases started. Clearly a great number of people, including children, are affected.”