Written questions by Athwal.

What steps is the Department taking to reduce waiting times in the family courts.

This Government is committed to improving the performance of the Family Courts, and the Family Justice Board has agreed system-wide priorities and targets for reducing delay across England and Wales. The latest published data shows a reduction in the national average case duration for both public and private law cases.In London, which has particular challenges around Family Court delays, a dedicated Family Justice Strategy has been implemented, bringing together key partners and the judiciary. This work has included targeted investment over 2025/26 to tackle the outstanding private law caseload by providing additional court capacity and a focus on ensuring that courts follow the Public Law Outline, with clear arrangements for overseeing performance. These measures have already delivered a reduction in delays.The Child Focused Model for private law now operates in 10 of 43 Family Court areas and seek to enhance the experience of children and families. They have demonstrated significant impact on timeliness. Cases are concluding between 11-30 weeks quicker under the model and outstanding caseloads have been reduced by up to 50%. The Government announced on 17 March its intention to roll this model out nationally by the end of this Parliament

What assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of the repeal of the presumption of parental involvement on children’s safety and wellbeing.

This Government is committed to ensuring that families involved in private family law proceedings receive the support they need and we are delivering a package of reforms to strengthen their wellbeing and safety throughout the process.A key part of this reform is the repeal of the presumption of parental involvement from the Children Act 1989. We have carefully assessed the impact of this measure, which involves courts adopting an open minded enquiry into what is in a child’s best interests, rather than starting from an assumption about parental involvement. Repealing the presumption will help ensure that decisions about child arrangements keep the child’s welfare at the centre of decision-making and are based on a robust assessment of risk. The impact assessment can be found at: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/59-01/0389/Non-IRCC_impact_assessment.pdf.We are also expanding our Child Focused Courts programme nationally, which improves how Family Courts manage many private law children cases, including those involving a child arrangements order. By providing early risk assessment, specialist domestic abuse support and a non-adversarial, problem-solving process, it better safeguards the wellbeing of children and families.

What steps his Department is taking to ensure that family courts safeguard the wellbeing of both parents and children.

This Government is committed to ensuring that families involved in private family law proceedings receive the support they need and we are delivering a package of reforms to strengthen their wellbeing and safety throughout the process.A key part of this reform is the repeal of the presumption of parental involvement from the Children Act 1989. We have carefully assessed the impact of this measure, which involves courts adopting an open minded enquiry into what is in a child’s best interests, rather than starting from an assumption about parental involvement. Repealing the presumption will help ensure that decisions about child arrangements keep the child’s welfare at the centre of decision-making and are based on a robust assessment of risk. The impact assessment can be found at: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/59-01/0389/Non-IRCC_impact_assessment.pdf.We are also expanding our Child Focused Courts programme nationally, which improves how Family Courts manage many private law children cases, including those involving a child arrangements order. By providing early risk assessment, specialist domestic abuse support and a non-adversarial, problem-solving process, it better safeguards the wellbeing of children and families.

How many Sikhs are employed in her Department; and whether they are recorded as (a) an ethnic or (b) a religious group.

The Ministry of Justice records Sikh or Sikhism, as a religion or belief and not as an ethnicity. Please refer to Civil Service Statistics 2024 Table A3 where statistics on religion or belief by department as at 31 March 2024 are published: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/civil-service-statistics-2024. This includes statistics on those recorded as ‘Sikh’.

What discussions she has had with Cabinet colleagues on steps to help tackle image-based abuse.

The Government was elected with a landmark mission to halve violence against women and girls (VAWG) in the next decade as part of the Safer Streets mission. This will require a cross-government approach, and Minister Phillips at the Home Office and I co-chair the VAWG Ministerial Group which regularly brings together Ministers from relevant Departments to ensure we are using all government levers available to achieve our mission. The Government’s VAWG strategy will be published this year with contributions from across Whitehall, including on joint steps to tackle image-based abuse.Tackling intimate image abuse requires a combined effort from colleagues across government, namely, Home Office, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, the Ministry of Justice, as well as Ofcom. As a first step, we have confirmed that we will legislate this parliament to make it a criminal offence to create sexually explicit deepfake images. This is alongside introducing new offences for the taking of intimate images without consent and the installation of equipment with intent to enable the taking of intimate images without consent.