Family Justice

: It clearly was a mistake for me to go off the rails and make a spiteful party political point. I regret it. The hon. Gentleman is right, of course. CAFCASS was allocated a budget of £107 million, a £12 million—12.6 per cent.—increase over its 2003–04 budget, particularly so that the backlog of unallocated cases, which the Constitutional Affairs Committee drew attention to, could be cleared. It was decided to sustain that increase in 2005–06 because we know that resources are an issue. Everybody has acknowledged that there is a great deal of work in progress, so let me finish where I started, by assuring hon. Members of the Government's concern about the issue, our commitment to dealing with it and our continued focus on it. However, we accept that our ability to take work forward in this area is not only informed but enormously helped by the approach of the Constitutional Affairs Committee and the climate that it has created, as well as its detailed, specific suggestions. Therefore, I should like to thank all those—many of them, as has been pointed out, no longer Members of the House—who were involved in preparing the report. I look forward to more good work from the Committee in future.