Family Justice (Transparency, Accountability and Cost of Living) Bill
(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)
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Mr Slaughter
I see the hon. Gentleman’s point, and no one would disagree that it might be important to have someone to give emotional support to litigants in a time of great stress—most litigation is a time of great stress, but particularly family litigation. I understand the examples he gives, but he does not deal with the problem that occurs in many cases, namely the inequality and imbalance of arms in private family law, let alone in public family law. That problem is not addressed in the Bill.
The third theme is costs. I noticed with interest clause 8(3), on the risk of costs in judicial review proceedings. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that, as a consequence of part 2 of the 2012 Act, no win, no fee agreements will not be available in all cases—they will not be available in judicial review, and nor will qualified one-way cost-shifting. It is therefore very likely that judicial review will be restricted for persons who do not qualify for legal aid. I suggest he looks at draft regulations on the future provision of legal aid, which suggest that all other remedies will need to be exhausted before legal aid is available in public law proceedings in judicial review cases. The Minister is looking up and showing some interest—
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Jeremy Wright)
indicated dissent.
Mr Slaughter
Perhaps it was just an involuntary reaction. The Minister might want to consider that point, because those regulations are likely to be debated in Committee within the next few weeks. If we are to have a wholesale restriction not only on those who do not qualify for legal aid, but on those who do, the availability of public law remedies will be severely curtailed. In that respect, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley could have gone some way further on how litigants in family proceedings—we are talking about family proceedings, but it will apply to proceedings more widely—could ensure that they can get access to justice and some protection in costs, particularly when they are up against public authorities.
On the detail of the Bill, the points in part 1 are well made, but I somewhat doubt that the hon. Gentleman’s remedies, which in most cases are statutory requirements on the courts and the fettering of the discretion of the courts, are the right way to proceed. We probably disagree on the family justice review. David Norgrove’s review, which was commissioned under the previous Government but published by and responded to by this Government, is an impressive piece of work. On family group conferences, which are dealt with in clause 1, the review said that
“the benefits of family group conferences should be more widely recognised and their use should be considered before proceedings”.
Separately, the family justice review found that both children and adults are “confused” about the family justice system—a point the hon. Gentleman made well. He and I would agree that family group conferences have an important role, and perhaps a bigger role, to play, but whether there should be a requirement is another matter.
On clause 2, more was said about grandparents than about any other single issue. I suspect there will be very little dissent from any party from the point that the role of grandparents in both contact and proceedings can be important. However, the family justice review and the Government’s response say that the leave requirement should remain, because it acts as an important safeguard for children and their families, and that that is consistent with the principle that the court’s paramount consideration must be the welfare of the child.
The Government said that they were
“committed to ensuring that children have meaningful relationships with family members who are important to them”,
including grandparents. That really moves us on to the issue of sheer parenting, and the balance between the rights of family members and the rights of the child. The hon. Gentleman will be well aware of what the final report of the family justice review said on that:
“the core principle of the paramountcy of the welfare of the child is sufficient and…to insert any additional statements brings with it unnecessary risk for little gain.”
That is a point on which the Government disagreed, but with which we find ourselves broadly in sympathy.
Clause 2 raises the issue of academic research. All that I would say on that—this point was raised by other hon. Members—is that there is a will in the courts to move away from a proliferation of expert reports. The hon. Gentleman says that those will not necessarily be reports given in evidence; I am therefore not entirely sure what the role of additional experts will be, or, if the reports are not given in evidence, how the provenance and authority of experts’ opinions will be judged. I agree with the point made by, I think, the hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Stephen Barclay), who said that we would be better employed in ensuring that a single expert gave good advice than in looking to second-guess or challenge that advice in a variety of perhaps only semi-formal ways.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Jeremy Wright)
It is a great pleasure to respond to what the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) rightly described as a wide-ranging debate. Any debate that gets us from thermodynamics to Jeremy Kyle by way of “The Waltons” cannot really be described in any other way. I am very grateful, too, for the contributions made by hon. Members, including the hon. Gentleman, the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Jim Dobbin) and my hon. Friends the Members for North East Cambridgeshire (Stephen Barclay), for Solihull (Lorely Burt), for Bracknell (Dr Lee) and for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), all of whom spoke a good deal of common sense. They have had the opportunity to do so because of this Bill, presented by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming). I again agree with the hon. Member for Hammersmith that we should pay tribute to my hon. Friend, whose commitment and experience, certainly in the area of family justice, are hard to beat. He has long demonstrated a real interest in improving the lives of the most vulnerable children in this country. I hope all of us have addressed this debate in a manner in keeping with that.
I have to disappoint my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley, however, because I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell that we should not create too much legislation, especially where there is no need to do so. If we were operating in a vacuum—with the Government taking no interest in the reform of the family justice system, putting forward no proposals, commissioning no research—my hon. Friend’s arguments would have more force, but that is not the case. As he knows, a substantial amount of effort has been put into reviewing the family justice system, and I am disappointed to learn that he is not a supporter of that. He knows that, with cross-party support, a review panel independently chaired by David Norgrove was set up in 2010 to look at all aspects of the family justice system, from court decisions on taking children into care through to disputes over children when parents divorce. The panel gathered evidence from hundreds of people and groups with a personal and professional interest, and conducted two public consultations. I do not know whether my hon. Friend contributed to that, but many people did. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East pointed out to us, the final report of the family justice review was published in November 2011, with over 130 recommendations to improve the way public and private law disputes are dealt with and to reform the structures and governance of the family justice system.
The Government published their response in February 2012. The Government accepted that the family justice system was too often characterised by delay, expense, bureaucracy and lack of trust—many of the issues that my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley and others mentioned today. My hon. Friend is right, and those who have been involved in the review are right, that the public have the right to expect much more. The Government accepted the majority of the panel’s recommendations, including putting children at the heart of the process, creating a single family court to make the system more effective and easier to navigate, reducing unnecessary delays in care proceedings and providing for expert evidence to be commissioned only where necessary, and establishing a family justice board to drive improvements in the system and improve management information. I would hope that my hon. Friend supported those provisions.
A programme of reform addressing the findings is already under way, and it is of vital importance. I am pleased to say that, despite what my hon. Friend said, the reforms were welcomed by users and professionals alike, and there is now a sense that all the key stakeholders—possibly excluding my hon. Friend—from Government to the judiciary and from social workers to lawyers, are absolutely committed to working together to achieve the changes that the system so badly needs.
I know that my hon. Friend has not had an opportunity to consider fully the draft legislation that is now receiving pre-legislative review, but I hope very much that he will take the trouble to look at it carefully, because I imagine that he will see a great deal that he can agree with. Because that material is being presented for pre-legislative review, and also because the matter is being investigated by the Justice Committee, there will be opportunities for him and others to influence the way in which the Government’s thinking develops. If the Bill then comes before the House, as I hope it will early next year, there will be opportunities for my hon. Friend and others to influence things at that stage. It is in that environment that I hope my hon. Friend will take the view that, worth while though many of the contents of the Bill are, and valuable though many of his ideas are, he will be prepared to withdraw it and wait until that legislation comes forward, and improve it if he believes that is necessary.
The Association of Directors of Children’s Services has come in for some harsh words in the course of the debate, and people have wondered why it does not support my hon. Friend’s Bill. It has made it very clear that it does not support the Bill because it does support the way in which the Government are going about reforming the family justice system more broadly. Whereas I am sure that the Bill has elements that it would agree with, the association believes, as I do, that we should be doing this in a much more holistic way, by virtue of the family justice review and the legislation that we expect to follow it.
It is worth saying that the Government have already made good progress in delivering these reforms and have been working with the judiciary to create a more effective court system. As a first step, we have introduced legislation through the Crime and Courts Bill to create a single family court. Once implemented, this new court structure will allow for the more efficient and flexible deployment of judicial resources. It will also be easier to understand and to navigate for court users.
Something that has not been touched on in great detail but is worth mentioning is that a key element of the draft legislation on family justice is the proposal to introduce a 26-week time limit for care proceedings. That is supported by a number of other reforms, including those on experts, to which I will return. The expectation is that it will be possible to complete cases sooner than 26 weeks while retaining the flexibility to extend complex cases where that is necessary to conclude the case justly. That is against the background that at the moment the average length of time it takes to complete such a case is over a year.
It is also right to focus on the quality of submissions made to courts by local authorities; that needs improvement. In many areas, poor-quality or late submissions delay cases and lead to too great a reliance on time-consuming expert reports. The Department for Education is working closely with the sector and the Association of Directors of Children’s Services on a new programme of work to strengthen court-related skills among social workers and to ensure that evidence submitted to the courts is robust and of high quality.
There has been substantial progress in setting up new governance structures for the family justice system. The Family Justice Board has now been established, and we have appointed David Norgrove, who chaired the family justice review, as its independent chair. The board has developed a system-wide action plan that sets out the contribution that it and its partners will make to the family justice reform agenda. This represents a big step in cementing the inter-agency co-operation that will be required to achieve our reforms. The Government are extremely encouraged by the progress that has been made in setting up local family justice boards, many of which are now up and running. That is testimony to the commitment and energy that exists to bring forward the improvements that we all agree the system so badly needs. The boards bring together individuals from agencies from across the system working together to provide locally tailored, system-wide solutions.
It is the Government’s view that a number of the proposals in the Bill are already addressed in the reform programme that I have outlined via legislation, guidance or best practice, while others are under consideration or in draft legislation as part of the widespread changes to the family justice system, or subject to consultation. I say again that the Government should not legislate on matters where legislation covering the issues already exists or non-legislative solutions are available to address the problems. We all agree that the child’s safety and welfare must come first, and we must encourage committed professionals to follow that line.
The Bill does share many of the high-level goals we are seeking to attain, but introducing them through this route, at this point in time, has the potential to confuse and complicate an already ambitious reform agenda that has been arrived at following extensive and intensive dialogue with the key stakeholders and users over the past two years. Adding complexity at this point not only risks our losing the broad consensus that has been established but could ultimately jeopardise successful implementation as resources become stretched in adopting a less coherent and focused reform agenda. Clearly, however well intentioned—I accept, of course, that my hon. Friend’s intentions are very good indeed—such a scenario would not be of benefit to children.
Let me turn to the contents of the Bill. I hope that I will be able to set out for my hon. Friend why the Government in part accept the intentions that he has set out, but in other parts do not accept that the methods he has chosen will be effective. Let me start at the beginning, with clause 1. My hon. Friend’s Bill seeks to make the use of family group conferences mandatory, subject to limited exceptions. The Government fully support the use of family group conferences where they are appropriate. Their use was strongly endorsed by the family justice review, and the Government have already funded the development and dissemination of a toolkit to ensure that family group conferences are used in the best possible way. In addition, the Government are currently funding the development of a framework of accreditation. The statutory guidance that accompanies the Children Act 1989 already highlights the importance of the use of family group conferences at key stages in the decision-making process for children, but they are a complement to, rather than a substitute for, other statutory meetings.
The Government’s support for family group conferences where they are appropriate could therefore not be clearer. However, we are of the view that making them compulsory would be a step too far. Family group conferences are not always suitable for all families in all circumstances. Families also have to agree to a family group conference in order for it to happen, not least to ensure a realistic prospect of a successful outcome. The toolkit to which I have referred sets out best practice in running the conferences. It also sets a clear expectation that the plans should be completed and agreed within six weeks, and that this will be agreed by the referrer as long as it addresses the issues of concern. That is what is called for in the Bill. Many of the proposals in clause 1 are therefore already covered by existing guidelines and good practice. However, although we want to encourage the use of family group conferences more widely when any decision needs to be made about a child’s future, we do not believe that legislation to make them compulsory is appropriate at this point.
My hon. Friend also raised the importance of parents having simple information to support them through the court process. Again, we agree, and various forms of guidance are currently available to assist parents involved with child protection services or entering the family justice system. In addition, a great deal of work is ongoing to improve the provision of information more generally for families before they enter the system. Parents will also continue to receive legal aid for public law cases, and work is under way to assist litigants in person in other cases. In the private law context, that includes the provision of an online hub, and telephone and face-to-face services for users, together with guidance for litigants in person and for practitioners, including the judiciary, on dealing with litigants in person.
The creation of a single family court is a key step in making the family courts easier for users to understand. Furthermore, a guiding principle of the 1989 Act is that local authorities must work in partnership with families when making any decisions about their children. The social worker has the primary responsibility to engage with family members to assess the overall capacity of the family to safeguard the child, as well as ascertaining the facts of the situation causing concern and the strengths in the family. Support is also available from other sources, such as the Family Rights Group, which receives funding from the Department for Education and produces advice sheets and free telephone and e-mail advice for parents and families involved with children’s social care about the care and protection of their children.
Clause 2 deals with proceedings in the family court. My hon. Friend’s support for the use of McKenzie friends to help parties put across their case is welcomed. The support for attendance by observers is also welcomed. Both McKenzie friends and observers are, of course, already a feature of the family courts, and courts take seriously the need of litigants to have such support. As my hon. Friend will know, McKenzie friends are already subject to rules of confidentiality regarding their work in court. The Government agree with my hon. Friend that there is a need to improve the quality of some expert reports in family proceedings, a question to which many other hon. Members have referred in this debate. We are working with the Family Justice Council to develop quality standards, on which we intend to consult later this year. Those standards will build on the existing framework of accountability set by the family procedure rules.
The family procedure rules make it clear that an expert’s overriding duty is to the court, regardless of who instructs or pays the experts. Experts are under a duty to provide an independent opinion that conforms to the best practice of their profession. In addition, experts are subject to the standards and codes set by their profession, and many are subject to statutory regulation. Imminent changes in secondary legislation and proposals for changes in primary legislation in the slightly longer term will reduce and focus the use of experts in family proceedings generally. Experts can, of course, play an important part in proceedings by providing an expert opinion about a question that is not within the skill and experience of the court. For example, an expert might be needed to determine whether the cause of an injury to a child is likely to be accidental, or to determine whether a parent is continuing to abuse illegal drugs.
Expert reports take up precious time, however. We agree with the family justice review’s conclusion that experts should be used only when they are necessary to determine a case justly, and that expert reports should not duplicate evidence available from other sources. We also agree that the court should ensure that such evidence is properly focused on the key questions that the court needs to have answered. Changes to the family procedure rules to bring that into effect are under consideration, and we hope to implement them early next year.
I understand that my hon. Friend is keen for researchers to have access to court records, including experts’ reports. Provisions are already in place in the family procedure rules—in practice direction 12G, should he wish to check—that enable any person lawfully in receipt of information relating to children proceedings to pass that information to researchers conducting an approved research project, including expert evidence.
However, as Members will be aware, the issue of how to open up the family courts further, and how to balance access with proper controls to prevent the disclosure of sensitive information that might be harmful to parties in the proceedings if released, remains a difficult and controversial issue which merits more serious consideration in the round. In this context, I draw my hon. Friend’s attention to the Family Justice Board, whose remit includes general improvements to the family justice system. It might well be profitable for him to have conversations with the board on how those matters could be taken forward.
Turning to the interests of grandparents and other members of a child’s family, let me start by reassuring my hon. Friend and others who have spoken today that the Government recognise that grandparents and other relatives can play an important role in children’s lives, and that those relationships are important. Grandparents and other relatives provide support for families in many different ways, including child care, support when things are difficult, and full-time care of the child.
The 1989 Act already requires local authorities to seek to place looked-after children with their wider family first if it is not possible for them to return to their birth family. The revised statutory guidance to the Act requires local authorities to demonstrate that they have considered family members and friends as potential carers at each stage of the decision-making process, before and during proceedings, and the family group conferences that we have already mentioned are an important way of involving family members.
The child and any person with parental responsibility for the child are party to proceedings. The court may at any time direct that any person be made a party to the proceedings, and that can include grandparents, family or friends. The local authority does not have a duty to assess informal family and friends care arrangements, unless it appears to the authority that services might be necessary to safeguard or promote the welfare of a child. In such circumstances, the framework for the assessment of children in need and their families provides a suitable model by which local authorities can satisfy themselves that the proposed carers have the capacity to meet the child’s needs.
Section 22C of the 1989 Act requires consideration to be given to the most appropriate placement that will safeguard and promote the child’s welfare. When return home to a birth parent is not possible, consideration must be given to placement with a relative or other connected person who is approved as a foster carer. When the arrangements involve private fostering arrangements, the carer is not approved as a local authority foster carer. However, the private fostering arrangement may be prohibited if assessed by the local authority as unsuitable.
For those family and friends carers involved when the child is looked after—and when a child is the subject of care proceedings—the regulatory framework sets out the required processes to be followed when the most appropriate placement for a looked-after child is with a connected person. When an immediate placement for a looked-after child with a relative or other connected person is required, and it is not possible to fulfil the requirements of the full approval process, the 2010 regulations set out the arrangements for the temporary approval of a connected person, to ensure that the child does not have to be placed with a stranger in the meantime.
The Department for Education’s consultation on a proposed redraft of the “Working Together” package, including new statutory guidance on serious case reviews and statutory guidance on undertaking assessments, concluded on 4 September. As part of the consultation, we sought views on replacing nationally prescribed timetables for assessment with local frameworks. The assessment process for individual children and families should be timely, transparent and proportionate to their needs. Social workers will determine what is timely and proportionate by using their knowledge, expertise and judgment. We are currently analysing the responses and the final guidance on assessment will be published by the end of the year.
On contact for grandparents, in cases where parents separate, no individual has an automatic right to any particular level or type of contact with the child. Such arrangements, if they cannot be resolved by the family members concerned, are referred to courts for a decision. Grandparents and other relatives may apply for contact through the courts, whose decision will take into account all the circumstances of each individual case, although in certain circumstances the permission of the court may be required. The Children Act is clear that the welfare of the child must be the court’s paramount consideration in such decisions. It will make a contact order if it decides that it is in the child’s best interests to have contact with the applicant. Any legislation that granted an automatic right to specific individuals to have contact with the child would, potentially, not be consistent with that principle.
As my hon. Friend knows, however, the Government are clear that the importance of children’s relationships with other family members should be taken into account during dispute resolution processes. Children’s relationships with family members who are important to them will, therefore, feature prominently in the creation of parenting agreements where appropriate and in the bespoke parenting programmes that will be available to support parents in reaching agreement out of court. If my hon. Friend looks again at the draft measures, which are currently subject to pre-legislative scrutiny, he will see that they propose a child arrangement order whereby many of the issues may most sensibly be addressed.
Clause 2(5) proposes to change the wording of section 22C(7)(c) of the Children Act, which requires the local authority, in determining the most appropriate placement for the child, to ensure that the placement is such that the child is provided with accommodation within the local authority’s area, unless that is not reasonably practicable. The amendment would remove the reasonable practicability test in favour of a best interests test, but section 22C(7) already places local authorities under an overarching duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of looked-after children. The section’s qualification of reasonable practicability ensures that, in a situation where the child should be placed within the local authority’s area but it is not possible to provide such accommodation—there might not, for example, be a suitable children’s home placement in the area—the child may be safely accommodated elsewhere. We cannot place an unqualified duty on local authorities in a situation where they may not be in a position to fulfil that duty.
On children in care, my hon. Friend’s concerns are reasonable and entirely understood. Putting children at the centre of the care planning process, whereby their wishes and feelings are always considered, is the underpinning principle of the Children Act.
Jeremy Wright
I am sure that my hon. Friend, who is an assiduous parliamentarian and familiar with how things work, will accept that, if a Bill is as wide-ranging as this one and if it has taken as long to debate as this one has, it deserves a proper response, which is what it will get from me.
As I was saying, the underpinning principle of the Children Act, which is in question here, is reflected throughout the regulations and guidance on care planning and reviews. Each child is allocated an independent reviewing officer and the regulations and guidance that came into force last year strengthen further the independence of that role by clarifying that they cannot be involved with the management or resource of that case. All local authorities with children’s services responsibilities must ensure that independent advocacy services are provided for children and young people making or intending to make a complaint through the complaints procedures and the processes that are already required to be in place. We are currently exploring what more the Government might be able to do to support those processes.
Under the Children Act, local authorities also have a duty to appoint a person to be a child’s independent visitor where it appears to them to be in the child’s best interests. Decisions about whether to appoint an independent visitor should be about the needs of the child, which are determined by examining a range of factors such as the distance from home of where they are placed and whether having an independent visitor will make a positive contribution to promoting their education and health. The independent visitor’s functions are to visit, advise and befriend the child.
In relation to my hon. Friend’s proposal that looked-after children should be treated the same as other children with regard to criminal records, I simply say to him that that should be the case now. Enforcing that does not require a change in the law, but if there are difficulties, we will of course work with him to address them.
I turn to the Bill’s suggested amendments to the Adoption and Children Act 2002. It may be helpful if I set out in a little more detail the effect that clause 4 would have. It would amend section 52 of the Act, which makes it clear that the court can dispense with the need for parental consent only where it is satisfied that the parents cannot be found or lack mental capacity, or that the child’s welfare requires it. As my hon. Friend will know, a placement order authorises a local authority to place the child for adoption by prospective adopters. The effect of an adoption order is that the parental responsibility of the birth parents is extinguished, and that only the child’s adopted parents have parental responsibility. Neither a placement order nor an adoption order has the effect of putting a child in the care of a local authority.
There would be two distinct effects of clause 4. First, it would require the court to give in its written judgment a full explanation of how it reached its conclusion on each aspect of the welfare checklist. Secondly, it would place a duty on the court to consider
“whether it is possible and in the interest of the welfare of the child to place the child with one of his relatives”
before making an order placing a child in the care of a local authority. I understand my hon. Friend’s underlying concerns, but I do not think it is sensible to amend the law in that way.
The clause would place a statutory duty on the court to give a fully reasoned judgment for a decision to dispense with parental consent when the court makes a placement order or adoption order. The court is, however, already under a statutory duty to consider the welfare checklist, and that duty applies to any decision of the court relating to the adoption of a child, not just to a decision to dispense with parental consent. Furthermore, the 2002 Act requires the court to do more than just consider the welfare checklist when making an order. It must consider the child’s welfare and the whole range of powers available to it under that Act and the Children Act 1989. Current legislation already requires the family proceedings court to give its reasons for decisions. In addition, domestic law already makes it clear that the judge must go through, analyse and balance each factor in the welfare checklist in order to justify his conclusions.
The clause would also place a duty on the court to consider whether it is both possible and in the interests of the welfare of the child to place him with one of his relatives before making an order placing him in the care of a local authority. However, section 52 of the 2002 Act is not about placing children in the care of a local authority. It is about parental consent for the adoption of a child. I and the Government share my hon. Friend’s central concern for the welfare of children and the need to keep them in their families wherever possible. We understand his intention in setting out his proposals, but we simply do not think that they are the best way of achieving what he wants.
I would wish to cover a number of other matters in detail, but I am conscious of the other business to be discussed today, and I would not wish to deny my hon. Friends who are in their places the opportunity to discuss it. However, I need to say one or two things about other areas that my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley has covered in the Bill.
In relation to the duties of local authorities and other bodies, it is worth pointing out that, as I said earlier, when making any decision about a looked-after child a local authority must be satisfied that it is the most appropriate way to safeguard and promote the child’s welfare. Under the 2002 Act, when the court or an adoption agency makes a decision about the adoption of a child, the child’s welfare must be the paramount consideration. Existing legislation covers a great deal of the ground that my hon. Friend wishes his Bill to cover. The Government are currently considering whether to amend the law on contact for children in care, following their recent call for views on giving greater flexibility to local authorities when making contact arrangements.
I agree with the reservations held by the hon. Member for Hammersmith about the definitions in clause 7 and the right to report wrongdoing, and a great deal of work would be required on that. The hon. Gentleman was also right when he spoke about the proposal to abolish the offence of scandalising the court, and the Government are currently considering that matter. In response to a debate in the other place during Committee stage of the Crime and Courts Bill, my noble friend Lord McNally undertook to consider the matter further in consultation with the judiciary and the devolved Administrations and return to it on Report, and that is what we will do.
The proposal by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley to publish contempt of court details would be difficult because of the impact it may have on innocent third parties. Were we to do so, the risk is that it would be possible to identify the child involved, which is obviously of concern. We must remember that cost liability in judicial reviews is an important deterrent to unmeritorious litigation. Legal aid remains available for judicial review, however, and legal aid clients have cost protection and are not usually required to pay the other side’s costs if they fail.
The law already contains provisions to deal with complaints about the Official Solicitor. I do not have time to go into those now, but I am sure that my hon. Friend can consider the matter at greater length if he wishes.
On the recording of hearings, parties already receive transcripts of court hearings and, as other hon. Members have said, it is not sensible to set up a competing process. Other transcripts may be produced, and if they did not match a further layer of complexity would be required to resolve any conflict. I understand my hon. Friend’s concern, but he does not go about resolving it in the right way in the Bill.
The right to assert litigation capacity is also covered by existing law. Courts are required to investigate capacity when that issue is raised, carefully and on the available evidence, and even if there seems to be no dispute, medical evidence is invariably required as a minimum before holding that a party lacks capacity. A person interested in the protected party for whom the Official Solicitor has been appointed by the court as litigation friend, can apply to the court and seek to have the Official Solicitor discharged as litigation friend, and that person—or somebody else—appointed in their place.
I do not believe that my hon. Friend is being too radical and progressive for the Government on the ambit of reasonableness in capacity, but the measure he suggests is not necessary because it is already covered by the Mental Capacity Act 2005. Existing legislation already prioritises and protects capacity to the furthest extent that a person is able to exercise it, and without using the reasonableness of the person’s proposed decision as the criterion for capacity.
Finally let me turn in the last few minutes to energy and fuel justice. The majority of today’s debate has focused on the family justice parts of my hon. Friend’s Bill, and I hope he will forgive me if I deal with other areas in a little less time. Clause 13 introduces a strategy to achieve lower bills and a more efficient use of fuels, and my hon. Friend will be aware of what the Government are already doing in that area, led by the Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Department for Communities and Local Government. My colleagues in both Departments, and the Government as a whole, are supportive of the aims in that section of the Bill.
My hon. Friend’s proposal to ensure that all new homes comply with level 6 of the code for sustainable homes is admirable but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East said, potentially an expensive ambition. Building regulations already require high levels of energy efficiency in all new homes—socially or privately owned—and a home built to current building regulations, which were introduced only in 2010, is well insulated and much easier and cheaper to heat than a typical older house. The Government recently consulted on proposals to tighten further the carbon and energy performance of new homes in 2013, and they have committed to introducing a zero-carbon requirement for all new homes from 2016. Because of that, separate legislation to improve energy efficiency for new homes is not necessary.
Requiring level 6 of the code for all social homes would be disproportionate, and could add as much as £30,000 to the construction cost of each home. Alongside the regulations and the code, it is also worth noting that a national review of locally applicable standards for new housing is now under way to reduce the burden of red tape.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change is especially interested in the ideas in the Bill on heating. That is because we as a Government are interested in the question of how to drive the long-term changes to heating systems in millions of domestic homes. We will need to do that if we wish to reduce emissions on the scale needed to avoid damaging climate change. My hon. Friend makes an interesting suggestion about the use of building regulations, and he may know that the Department of Energy and Climate Change will publish a heat policy options paper next year. Use of regulation is one of the options that the Department’s officials are exploring, in consultation with others. The Government are, therefore, already considering policy options that will seek to increase take-up of low carbon and renewable energy in buildings.
Clause 13(2)(c) of the Bill makes specific reference to microgeneration measures having access to the green deal and financial incentives. That is something that we will look at and, in addition, we think that in a small number of cases consumers may be able to get green deal finance to help fund a part of the cost of installing renewable heating. We need to do more work over the coming months to ensure that this interaction is as smooth, as joined-up and as consumer friendly as possible. Ministers will say more about those proposals in coming months.
On fuel poverty, we have concerns, as my hon. Friend will know, about the way in which fuel poverty is being measured, and we are looking again at that measurement mechanism. He will be pleased to hear that we have already announced that next year we will publish a refreshed strategy for tackling fuel poverty—the first such strategy since 2001. So we are already undertaking the work needed to ensure that we have the right framework in place for measuring fuel poverty, which will in turn allow us to target our resources on those whom we need to help most.
My hon. Friend has put in front of us a very wide-ranging Bill, and the spirit of much of it is something that the Government entirely support. But I urge my hon. Friend to look again at the measures that are already in draft from the Government, which we believe address many of the problems that he has rightly identified. In that light, I ask him to withdraw his Bill and work with us to improve the legislation that the Government have put forward and give it his full support.