Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
What assessment he has made of trends in waiting times for Child Maintenance Service appeals.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
I accept that waiting times for Child Maintenance Service appeals remain higher than we would like. I am pleased to say that we are working on measures to help reduce waiting times for those appealing to the Social Security and Child Support jurisdiction.
We have recruited three more judges who will be able to hear Child Maintenance appeals in Wales, two of which will be available to sit at the Langstone tribunal venue in Newport. Furthermore, we are spending £1.2 billion on modernising the courts and tribunals system with a view to improving the experience of service users. 129 fee paid judges have been recruited to the SSCS jurisdiction in 2019, which will also greatly assist.
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many litigants in person there were in (a) crown courts, (b) family courts and (c) county courts in each court area in Wales in (i) 2013, (ii) 2014, (iii) 2015, (iv) 2016, (v) 2017, (vi) 2018 and (vii) 2019.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
This information is not held centrally and would require reviewing individual court files in each year specified. The requested information could only be obtained at disproportionate cost. However, self-representation in criminal, civil and family cases is identified in HMCTS case management systems by the legal representation field being left blank. These figures should therefore be considered as counting parties without a recorded representative, and are not necessarily self-representing litigants in person.
PERSONS WITHOUT RECORDED REPRESENTATION IN HMCTS WALES 2013-2019 | |||
YEAR | CROWN COURTS | COUNTY COURT | FAMILY COURT |
2013 | 22 | 2291 | 6660 |
2014 | 17 | 1792 | 6243 |
2015 | 22 | 1800 | 5813 |
2016 | 30 | 1653 | 6506 |
2017 | 30 | 1852 | 6757 |
2018 | 48 | 1763 | 6679 |
2019 | Data not published until June 2020 | 15111 | 50861 |
Access to justice is a central pillar of society, which is why we spent around £1.7 billion on legal aid last year. We have also committed a further £5 million on innovative technologies to enable access to legal support at the earliest opportunity.
We are improving the Exceptional Case Funding scheme, reviewing legal aid means testing, and will launch an awareness campaign to ensure even more people know what support they are entitled to.
Notes to accompany release of data:
1. Family and county court data for 2019 is available at present only for the period January 2019 until September 2019.
2. County court data is for cases where claims were defended. The data represents defended cases where there was a claimant only represented, defendant only represented or neither claimants or defendants were represented. Please note: it cannot be assumed that each defended claim has only one claimant and defendant.
3. In both the family and county court, some cases involve more than one applicant/claimant or respondent/defendant. As such there are more applicants and respondents than there are cases.
4. Please note, the Crown Court data includes both defendants who did not have an advocate recorded at all hearings and defendants whose advocate representation was unknown. It is not necessarily the case that someone whose representation was unknown, did not have representation.
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the average waiting time is for a personal independence payment appeal to be heard under the Social Security and Child Support Tribunal service in (a) Wales and (b) England and Wales.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
Information about waiting times for Personal Independence Payment (PIP) appeals to the First-tier Tribunal (Social Security and Child Support) (SSCS) is published at:
www.gov.uk/government/collections/tribunals-statistics.
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the average waiting time is for a Child Maintenance Service appeal to be heard under Her Majesty’s Courts & Tribunal Service in each court area in Wales.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
General information about waiting times for appeals in the First-tier Tribunal (Social Security and Child Support) (SSCS) are published at:
www.gov.uk/government/collections/tribunals-statistics
The table below contains the average waiting time for Child Maintenance appeals between July and September 2019 (the latest period for which data are available) at HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) hearing venues in Wales1.
Average time (in weeks) taken to administer Child Maintenance appeals between July – September 2019 (the latest period for which figures are available) | |
Aberystwyth | ~ |
Cardiff | 59 |
Haverfordwest | ~ |
Langstone, Newport | 38 |
Llanelli | ~ |
Port Talbot | 42 |
Swansea | ~ |
Wrexham | ~ |
1 Wales SSCS Region
~ denotes five or fewer cases. If the number of disposals are five or fewer, the average disposal time is redacted.
Although care is taken when processing and analysing the data, the details are subject to inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale case management system and are the best data that are available. Data include appeals cleared with and without a Tribunal hearing.
Waiting times are calculated from receipt of an appeal to its final disposal. An appeal is not necessarily disposed of at its first hearing. The final disposal decision on the appeal may be reached after an earlier hearing had been adjourned (which may be directed by the judge for a variety of reasons, such as to seek further evidence), or after an earlier hearing date had been postponed (again, for a variety of reasons, often at the request of the appellant). An appeal may also have been decided at an earlier date by the First-tier Tribunal, only for the case to have gone on to the Upper Tribunal, to be returned once again to the First-tier, for its final disposal.
HMCTS recognises it is important for appeals to be heard as quickly as possible, and is in the process of recruiting more judicial office holders to the SSCS jurisdiction in order to increase capacity and help to reduce waiting times for appellants. In 2018, 118 specialist members were appointed and trained to the jurisdiction, and an extra 129 fee-paid judges were appointed in 2019. The jurisdiction will also benefit from 114 salaried judges and 170 fee-paid judges being recruited across tribunals more widely.
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what proportion of steel procured by his Department was produced in the UK, in each of the last five years.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
This Government remains committed to supporting the UK steel industry.
MoJ collates information about steel spend for projects with the largest steel requirements, including origin where known. This information is published annually on gov.uk at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/steel-public-procurement
The data was first published in January 2019, with the next iteration due to be published shortly.
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the average waiting time is for a Child Maintenance Service appeal to be heard under Her Majesty’s Courts & Tribunal Service in (a) Wales and (b) England and Wales.
Answered by Wendy Morton
General information about waiting times for appeals in the First-tier Tribunal (Social Security and Child Support) (SSCS) are published at:
www.gov.uk/government/collections/tribunals-statistics
The average waiting time for Child Maintenance appeals between July and September 2019 (the latest period for which data are available) was (a) 46 weeks in Wales and (b) 40 weeks in England and Wales.
Although care is taken when processing and analysing the data, the details are subject to inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale case management system and are the best data that are available. Data include appeals cleared with and without a Tribunal hearing.
Waiting times are calculated from receipt of an appeal to its final disposal. An appeal is not necessarily disposed of at its first hearing. The final disposal decision on the appeal may be reached after an earlier hearing had been adjourned (which may be directed by the judge for a variety of reasons, such as to seek further evidence), or after an earlier hearing date had been postponed (again, for a variety of reasons, often at the request of the appellant). An appeal may also have been decided at an earlier date by the First-tier Tribunal, only for the case to have gone on to the Upper Tribunal, to be returned once again to the First-tier, for its final disposal.
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many publicly-funded providers of legal aid for housing cases there are in (a) Newport and (b) Monmouthshire.
Answered by Wendy Morton
Details of firms holding a legal aid contract, including their locations and the categories of law in which they may offer services, are published at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/directory-of-legal-aid-providers.
The LAA regularly monitors capacity and the available access to services, and takes action where it identifies gaps in services or where demand is greater than the available supply.
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what proportion of benefit appeals to HM Courts and Tribunal Service made against Department of Work and Pensions decisions were overturned on appeal in (a) Wales and (b) Newport East constituency in the latest period for which figures are available.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Information about the volumes, outcomes, and timeliness of appeals in the First-tier Tribunal (Social Security and Child Support) (SSCS) is published at:
www.gov.uk/government/collections/tribunals-statistics
SSCS appeals are listed into the hearing venue nearest to the appellant’s home address. The published data (which can be viewed at the link above) provide information about the outcomes of appeals for hearing venues covering (a) Wales and (b) the Newport East constituency for January – March 2019, the latest period for which data are available.
Decisions on benefit entitlement can be overturned on appeal for a variety of reasons. For instance, further evidence, including evidence in the form of oral testimony, may be provided at the hearing. Her Majesty’s Courts & Tribunals Service cannot comment on decisions made by independent tribunal judiciary.
Latest figures (to March 2019) indicate that since Personal Independence Payment was introduced, 4.1 million decisions have been made, and of these, 10% have been appealed and 5% have been overturned at Tribunals. For Employment and Support Allowance (post Work Capability Assessment) to December 2018, 4.1m decisions have been made and of these 8% have been appealed and 4% have been overturned.
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what plans the Government has to conduct evidence-gathering sessions with domestic abuse survivors and charities as part of its review into family courts.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
On 21 May 2019 we announced a public call for evidence led by a panel of experts to gather evidence on how the family courts protect children and parents in cases of domestic abuse and other serious offences.
The inaugural panel meeting took place on Friday 14 June 2019. We will shortly be announcing its planned approach for engaging domestic abuse survivors and other key stakeholders, as well the composition of the panel and agreed objectives for the call for evidence.
The panel members represent key parties to the issue and will provide expertise from across the Family Justice System. Included are representatives from the Judiciary, academia, social care, policy officials and third sector organisations which represent and advocate for survivors of domestic abuse.
It is vital that this call for evidence can contribute to real improvements to the Family Justice System to protect victims and their families. For this reason, the experiences of domestic abuse survivors will be central to the evidence gathered by the panel.
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, in how many family court cases (a) one and (b) both defendants were without legal representation in Wales in each year since 2010.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
Figures showing the legal representation of applicants and respondents in family proceedings in Wales from 2011 – 2017 are in the table below.
Table 1 |
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Legal representation status of applicants and respondents in Family Court cases in Wales with at least one hearing, annually 2011 - 2017 | |||||||||
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| Legal Representation |
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Year | Total Cases | Cases With Hearing |
| Both | % | Applicant or Respondent | % | Neither / Unknown | % |
2011 | 15,317 | 5,862 |
| 3,309 | 56% | 1,878 | 32% | 675 | 12% |
2012 | 15,303 | 6,356 |
| 3,496 | 55% | 2,094 | 33% | 766 | 12% |
2013 | 14,316 | 6,580 |
| 2,721 | 41% | 2,659 | 40% | 1,200 | 18% |
2014 | 12,849 | 5,586 |
| 2,221 | 40% | 2,035 | 36% | 1,330 | 24% |
2015 | 13,376 | 5,398 |
| 2,175 | 40% | 2,005 | 37% | 1,218 | 23% |
2016 | 16,742 | 6,072 |
| 2,515 | 41% | 2,071 | 34% | 1,486 | 24% |
2017 | 14,092 | 6,091 |
| 2,530 | 42% | 2,102 | 35% | 1,459 | 24% |
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Source: |
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HMCTS FamilyMan case management system |
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Notes: |
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1) Legal representation is determined by the field 'legal representation' in Familyman being left blank or completed. Therefore, this is only a proxy measure and parties without a recorded representative are not necessarily self-representing litigants in person. | |||||||||
2) In this instance 'at least one hearing' refers to non-vacated scheduled hearings, rather than actual hearings that have taken place. | |||||||||
3) In most Family Court case types, there are instances of cases with more than one applicant or respondent. In these instances, if any one applicant or respondent is recorded as having legal representation (as detailed in note 1), then this group has been considered as 1 party all with legal representation. | |||||||||