Children, Schools and Families Bill

I rise relatively early in this fairly short debate, partly to respond to the amendments tabled by the Opposition but partly to agree with both Opposition spokesmen that it is a matter of regret to us all that these matters were not debated in Committee. I sat through every Committee sitting, including the public evidence sessions, and I assure Members that it is pretty frustrating to sit there and be unable to make at least some comment on a part of a Bill for which one has some responsibility. I also rise to speak at this point in the debate because in the course of the public evidence sittings and throughout the period when this part of the Bill was being discussed outwith this House, including by the many organisations that have contributed to it, we listened to what people had to say, which is why we have tabled our amendments in this group. I hope that my comments will lead the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk (Mr. Bellingham) to appreciate that I am doing all I can to try to be helpful and to assuage some of the concerns people have raised, even though they were not debated in Committee. I want to begin by considering why we have come to our current situation. I acknowledge that the hon. Gentleman said at the beginning of his speech that he and the Opposition agree that transparency in the family courts is an important issue, and that they support that and find it unacceptable that the family courts differ so much from the rest of the Courts Service. For a number of years—in fact, since Lord Justice Munby's Re B judgment in 2004—we have been consulting on, and slowly changing, the extent to which individuals can share information from the family courts, and we have been able to move from a system that, for example, did not even allow a man or wife to disclose to their new partner the fact that they were involved in Children Act proceedings for contact arrangements for their child from a previous relationship. They were not allowed to talk to their MP about such issues either, and given that over the past year we have, for a variety of reasons, been very concerned about the relationship between the MP and their constituents, that is a pretty large hole in the system. Those aspects of the system were clearly unhelpful for the people involved, and unhealthy for democracy and justice. We therefore changed the rules so that the situation is now more open and transparent, but always with checks and balances to make sure that the publishing of information, for example, is permissible only within a very specific framework. Those changes have proved to be relatively successful. The hon. Member for North-West Norfolk has mentioned that last year we introduced the family court information pilots, which are looking at the impact on the judiciary and the court system of publishing anonymised judgments online. Anonymised judgments were established not for the benefit of the media, but, rather, to see how the system impacts on the judiciary. They also protect the identity of those involved, which is a key factor in their success. Again, checks and balances are in place. The hon. Gentleman asked about Wolverhampton. Its pilot started in January, so it has been running for only two months so far. In April last year, we made a very important change to the rules of court, so that the media now have the right to attend most family proceedings. The hon. Gentleman rightly pointed out that they could attend the top and bottom ends, so to speak, of the family proceedings, but not some of the more central areas, such as the High Court. Again, we have put in place sufficient checks and balances to ensure that the courts can choose to exclude them, where appropriate. The recent evaluation showed that the changes have presented few problems, and that the major block to their achieving their objectives is that the media are not attending family proceedings to the extent that we had expected, largely because they can report so little of the information that they might learn from the proceedings. Whereas the other measures that we have introduced have made a positive contribution to making the family courts more open and transparent, allowing the media to attend has not as yet added to that. The limits on what can and cannot be reported are such that the media do not, on the whole, bother to attend. Because the media are not allowed to report anything of substance, the public are not able to grasp how the family courts work, or how the courts reach very difficult decisions every day about children and families. The concept of open justice is all the poorer for that. That is why we have introduced these provisions. Their aims are to allow the media to report on the family courts more fully, to allow the public to be more aware of the work of these courts and the decisions they make, and to afford family courts the openness and transparency other parts of the judicial system have had for many years. We do not and would not tolerate such restrictions in other parts of the justice system, so these changes are long overdue, but I seek to persuade Members that while the changes we have made so far have been relatively successful, and while I hope those I propose in today's amendments will also be successful, they are all proposed with the privacy and safety of children in mind, and with checks and balances to ensure that that is achieved. Even though the details were not discussed in Committee, I am aware that a number of concerns have been raised since the original clauses were introduced. I hope Members will agree to the amendments tabled today or late last week—I am sorry it took so long for that to happen, but that was entirely outwith my control. I say to the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk that I would never dream of describing him as churlish, and I hope that, like me, he has come to this debate in a spirit of openness and with the aim of trying to take this matter forward and of putting measures in place that will be better for the justice system and all those involved in it. We have considered the concerns raised, such as protecting privacy, while also ensuring the system can be as open as possible, and I hope these amendments will allay some of those concerns. We also want to ensure the integrity of the process in making a considered transition to a second, more open, phase. First, let me address the amendments dealing with the issues of privacy and identification. Government amendments 113, 114 and 115 all deal with the publication of information contained within court orders. Taken together, these amendments will make it clear that, while the default position is that court orders in relevant family proceedings will remain publishable without the court's permission being required, the publisher will need to remove any identification information from the text or summary of the order before publishing. The publication of an order complete with any identification information that the order contains will require the court's permission. These amendments are offered in response to concerns raised about the important question of how best to ensure that orders in family proceedings may be made public without an excessive risk of identification of those involved. By placing the responsibility for redaction on the publisher, the Government are ensuring that no undue burden is placed on busy family court judges to have to check every family court order in order to make sure that identification information has been removed.