Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the causes of changes in the number of parties representing themselves in court in private law family cases.

Litigants in person have always been a feature of the justice system. Data on disposals in the financial year prior to April 2013 indicate that in 64% of privatefamilylaw cases there was at least one party without recorded legal representation.

We are closely monitoring the performance of the family justice system. The number of family cases where one or more parties present themselves is published in Courts Statistics Quarterly (www.gov.uk/government/collections/court-statistics-quarterly).

Judges are trained to help people with no legal representation and are accustomed to doing so, including by explaining procedures and what is expected of the parties. We have taken steps to help people who either want to represent themselves in court or have to do so, which include publishing a revised guide for separating parents and more training for judges. The link to the guide is:

http://hmctsformfinder.justice.gov.uk/HMCTS/GetLeaflet.do?court_leaflets_id=2756