Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the Answer of 22 April 2026 to Question 127202, whether his Department plans to undertake an assessment of the adequacy of the evidential base underpinning the report entitled Assessing Risk of Harm to Children and Parents in Private Law Children Cases, published in June 2020, including of the (a) generalisability of findings from the evidence base, (b) methodological limitations of that evidence base and (c) extent to which findings derived from specific demographic cohorts have informed wider (i) policy, (ii) guidance and (iii) statutory interpretation.

The Government has no plans to undertake an assessment of the adequacy of the evidential basis underpinning the Harm Panel Report. The report was based on a call for evidence which received over 1200 responses from individuals and organisations, as well as focus groups and roundtables. The call for evidence was open to the public, allowing any interested parties and organisations to respond. This was supplemented by a literature review commissioned by the Ministry of Justice.

Impacts on different demographic groups are routinely considered as part of policy developments, including those stemming from the Report, to test for compliance with the Public Sector Equality Duty.

Work in response to the report has also included further research with ethnic minority families.

There is no report or review formally titled the ‘Cafcass harm review’.