Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to Recommendation 8 of the report by the Domestic Abuse Commissioner entitled The Family Court and domestic abuse: achieving cultural change, published in July 2023, if he will make it his policy to (a) increase resources for the Qualified Legal Representative (QLR) scheme, (b) increase rates of pay for QLRs and (c) ensure that QLR advocates are able to recover (i) travel and (ii) other reasonable expenses.

The Government received the Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s report “The Family Court and domestic abuse: achieving cultural change” on 18 July. We are considering the recommendations made and will publish a full response to the report shortly.

With regard to the Pathfinder courts, monitoring and evaluation is ongoing across both pilot areas. We anticipate this will be concluded in spring 2024, at which stage we will consider how best to disseminate the lessons learnt.

In May, we published an update on the Pathfinder pilots, outlining the early indicators of success and progress towards key policy goals. Early insights are positive, and the pilots are being well received in the local areas.