Family courts in England and Wales ‘not good enough’ for women and children, minister says

‘Problem-solving’, child-focused courts to replace adversarial hearings, with earlier intervention to cut delays Family courts are “not good enough” and have treated women and children unfairly for decades, a government minister has said. Announcing a major overhaul of the family justice system in England and Wales that will play a central role in “rebalancing” the family courts, Alison Levitt said often brutal legal showdowns will be replaced with a “problem-solving”, child-focused model. Part of a move across the Ministry of Justice to tackle court backlogs, the department said child focused courts – which centre on child welfare and seeks out-of-court resolutions – have reduced child trauma, cut a backlog of cases and reduced waiting times. They will now become the standard model for all section 8 cases, which involve child arrangements including where that child lives, who they have contact with and how long they spend with each parent. The Labour peer, who was Keir Starmer’s principal legal adviser when he was the director of public prosecutions, said that she had been repeatedly accused of sexism since she became a minister last autumn, including as a re