HL Deb 17 January 1983 vol 437 cc1182-4

2.45 p.m.

Baroness Faithfull

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

The Question was as follows:

To ask Her Majesty's Government when the interdepartmental committee on the Family Conciliation Service is likely to publish its report; how soon thereafter its recommendations are likely to be implemented; and what support can in the meantime be given to the Bristol Courts Family Conciliation Service.

The Lord Chancellor (Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone)

My Lords, it is proposed to publish the committee's report; but it would be premature at this stage to anticipate when those recommendations of the committee which are accepted by Ministers might be implemented. An application from the Bristol Courts Family Conciliation Service for further short-term funding is under consideration, and it is hoped that it will be possible to announce a decision very soon.

Baroness Faithfull

My Lords, may I thank the noble and learned Lord for that reply? May I ask him whether he agrees that the period in divorce cases between the time at which parents separate and a divorce is finalised is, particularly for the children, an unhappy and disturbing one? The Bristol Courts Family Conciliation Service has done great service in the past four years in dealing with over 1,000 cases. May I ask the noble and learned Lord this question: when he said that it is hoped to be able to help the Bristol project, is this in the near future or the distant future? May I further ask him which department is responsible for the position with regard to divorces and conciliation on a long-term policy basis?

The Lord Chancellor

My Lords, that is rather a large number of supplementary questions; I hope that I remember them all. Yes, it is obvious that divorce and its consequences cause a great deal of unhappiness, and anything which can mitigate the unhappiness is greatly to be encouraged. Yes, I think one can can say that the Bristol scheme has done a great deal of good work; but the problem of course is to provide—if one is to provide—a scheme which is applicable throughout the country, and the Bristol scheme is essentially, at the moment, a local one. I think I said in my original Answer that it was hoped that a decision on the application for temporary funding would be announced very soon. I do not think I can enlarge on that Answer. The inderdepartmental committee is in the strict sense interdepartmental, but I understand that the secretariat and the officiais come from my department.

Lord Wells-Pestell

My Lords, will the noble and learned Lord allow me to tell him——

Several Noble Lords

Question!

Lord Wells-Pestell

My Lords, I have asked a question. Will the noble and learned Lord allow me to inform him that 40 per cent. of all school children come from broken homes? As a result of the rights of parents to see their children, it takes social workers and probation officers an enormous amount of time to arrange for facilities. If there were a comprehensive conciliation service throughout the country, those matters could be dealt with long before the couple were divorced, and arrangements could be entered into.

The Lord Chancellor

My Lords, I think that there is more in that than meets the eye. Obviously anybody who knows the situation about divorce knows that a very large number of children are affected by it—and I think always traumatically. This should lead people to think twice before they allow their marriages to break up. Anything which can prevent that is much to be encouraged. The conciliation service is concerned with the process after the marriage has broken up in principle. It is not to be confused with reconciliation. Again, anything which can induce couples, who are sometimes embittered, to treat one another in a civilised way is to be encouraged. I forget what the last part of the question was.

Lord McGregor of Durris

My Lords, is the noble and learned Lord able to say whether the recommendation of the committee on one-parent families—the Finer Committee—that conciliation facilities should be available in all courts handling family matters, is supported by the findings of the Bristol research? In particular, does that research disclose any savings in the cost of administering family justice as a result of conciliation facilities being available?

The Lord Chancellor

My Lords, broadly speaking, there are two types of conciliation in use at the moment; the in-court service based on the court itself, which is concerned with the divorce proceedings, and the out-of-court service, of which the Bristol scheme is part and which is probably the best known or the best publicised. One of the purposes of the interdepartmental committee is to assess the rival values of the two methods of conciliation.

As to the second part of the question, we tried, as a matter of fact, to find evidence about the saving of expense. If one approached the problem a priori, one would expect to find such evidence because it ought to be cheaper to settle things in a civilised way. Unfortunately, the work we put in hand did not altogether support this conclusion, at any rate with a positive result.

Lord Mishcon

My Lords, quite apart from the question of the saving of expense to legal aid, would the noble and learned Lord agree that the conciliation service is so valuable in removing the adversarial content of family disputes between husband and wife and in helping them round the table to reach civilised conclusions, which not only shorten the time and help the children in the family but equally lead them as human beings to come to agreement by accord rather than as a result of a judicial decision?

The Lord Chancellor

My Lord, I think I would agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, has just put to the House. It is obviously better to come to a civilised settlement by civilised means rather than by fighting it out. I do not think the legal profession—perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, would agree—is in the least to blame for the adversarial atmosphere. The atmosphere comes, I am afraid, from the bitterness between the parties; and the legal profession—or at least those members of it with whom I am familiar, and I speak from my own experience—does its best, sometimes even risking its own reputation with its clients, to make people see that, even if a marriage has broken down irretrievably, a festering sore continually running is only going to lead to unhappiness all round.

Baroness Ewart-Biggs

My Lords, is the noble and learned Lord aware that, if there is not a definite answer very soon, it will have the same effect on the Bristol scheme as a negative answer and they will have to start winding down their operations? Does not the noble and learned Lord think that expenditure of £40,000 is the best spent money in the country when it can in some way help the most bewildered, anxious and vulnerable children in the country?

The Lord Chancellor

My Lords, I do not think the situation as regards Bristol is quite so serious as the noble Baroness thinks; but, of course, the time factor is very much in our minds. It is not simply a question of money. It may be that the committee will come to the conclusion that an in-court service is best. I have not any idea of what the committee is likely to decide. I had hoped that its report would be out by the end of January but, as far as I know, it has slipped by about two months,