Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps the Government is taking to reverse the fall in take-up of family mediation for separating and divorcing couples.

We have changed the law to require people to consider mediation before applying to the Family Court. This will encourage people to resolve their issues through mediation rather than court, where appropriate.

We are delivering a wide-ranging programme of activity to improve public awareness about family mediation and to make sure that advice agencies are providing the right information about it. This includes being very clear that legal aid is still available for mediation and for legal support for mediation.

I have taken the opportunity to engage directly with mediation and legal practitioners about the issues facing them at the moment. I have hosted a webchat for people to come forward and offer ideas to encourage people to use family mediation and launched an online tool called Dialogue where people can post their ideas.

I have hosted two roundtable meetings to discuss increasing the take-up of family mediation with key figures in the mediation profession. The ideas from these events were considered by the Family Mediation Task Force, which was chaired by David Norgrove. The ‘Report of the Family Mediation Task Force' has been published on the mediation Dialogue webpage at: http://bit.ly/1o7roWW. The report makes recommendations about increasing the uptake of family mediation. The Government will respond in due course.