Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether she plans to introduce AI integration and camera use in family law proceedings.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is at the heart of the Government’s plan to kickstart an era of economic growth, transform how we deliver public services, and boost living standards for working people across the country. Within the Ministry of Justice, we are testing and adopting AI to improve the experience and efficiency within our courts.

AI has the potential to enable service improvements across HM Courts & Tribunals Service, and we are exploring how it can be applied responsibly to our operations and services, including to support document processing, transcription, summarisation and translation. The use of AI in the courts and tribunals will be focused on accelerating and assisting people’s work, not automating decisions.

All use of artificial intelligence in the Ministry of Justice is aligned with the AI Playbook for the UK Government and the Algorithmic Transparency Reporting Standard. The Lady Chief Justice and Senior President of Tribunals issued AI Guidance for the judiciary in December 2023.

There are currently no live AI or predictive analytics systems in use in the Family Courts.

We are running early-stage discovery and proof of concept projects to test the potential value of AI in the Family Courts as follows:

1. A tool to support the judiciary with anonymisation and redaction of judgments in support enhancing family court transparency by increasing the number of judgments published in the Family Courts.
2. Microsoft Copilot 365 licenses are being trialled by members of the judiciary to test the value in supporting routine activities, including in the Family Courts.

Remote hearings in family proceedings, often conducted via telephone or video conferencing, are already regularly used where the judge with conduct of the case feels it is appropriate.