Keith Vaz: The Minister is being very diplomatic. Perhaps I can tease an answer out of him. Does he consider that an authority—perhaps not Leicestershire county council, but a fictitious county council in exactly the same position—should pay its occupational therapists more than Leicestershire is currently paying?
Keith Vaz: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Keith Vaz: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I tried to attract your attention earlier, but you did not call me. My point relates to what the Minister has just said and the order in which the House will take the amendments. As you, Mr. Speaker, have said, there is an enormous number of amendments to the Bill. I am concerned about new clauses 13 and 5, which involve the child assessment orders and the...
Keith Vaz: The Solicitor-General invited questions on these technical amendments. Does he believe that the amendment pre-empts the debates that we shall hold later on family courts? Does he agree that if we had a family court, it would meet many of the criticisms of the delays that occur when the court system deals with cases affecting children?
Keith Vaz: Although we welcome the amendments, especially those relating to the extension of representation, I am concerned about one matter. The Solicitor-General will recall that we both sat on the Legal Aid Bill Committee, when I was concerned about the same matter —that is, the amount of resources available for legal aid. It is all very well amending legislation to provide for representation, but...
Keith Vaz: Will the Solicitor-General give way?
Keith Vaz: No one in the House disagrees with the Solicitor-General's comment that this is an historic Bill, which will reform the substance of child care law. Does he agree, therefore, that now is the time to reform the procedure? If Parliament changes child care law radically, and we do not get the support structure right, the Bill will be completely ineffective.
Keith Vaz: So we have a family court.
Keith Vaz: I do not wish to harass the Solicitor-General; I want to be fair to him and I follow his argument. He has referred to the rolling programme, and he has used the phrase, "the first step" which he used in Committee and he has sought the endorsement of the president of the Family Division for his proposals. If he is on a rolling programme, and bearing in mind the fact that it has taken about 100...
Keith Vaz: I am grateful to the Solicitor-General for giving way again and for setting out the criteria for the rolling programme. We are almost there in terms of an agreement. What is the timetable for the working party to consider establishing a unified family court system? Will it be one year or two? The Solicitor-General's list did not answer that. Will it be established at the start of the review...
Keith Vaz: Does my hon. Friend share my disappointment about the fact that the Solicitor-General has announced this working party and the rolling programme, but he has not given an effective starting or finishing date? The programme has no timetable, so it is not much of a programme.
Keith Vaz: In Committee, the Solicitor-General coined the memorable phrase "an all-singing, all-dancing, family court". When he started his speech, and busied himself around the Dispatch Box looking for his notes, I thought that he was giving us an example of what the all-singing, all-dancing court would look like. The scenario put forward by the hon. Member for Mid-Kent (Mr. Rowe) of the...
Keith Vaz: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman returned to the Chamber rather than going to Bermuda. I hope that he will join the Opposition in the Lobby and support new clause 1. I agree with the comments of some hon. Members about the way in which the courts operate. The juvenile and domestic courts in Leicester are prime examples of the problems and the pressures on families. There is only a small...
Keith Vaz: When?
Keith Vaz: How can the Minister justify a period of seven days for an assessment when his own Department's guidelines suggest that an assessment will take three months?
Keith Vaz: indicated dissent.
Keith Vaz: The Minister is absolutely right when he says that we are dealing with the heart of the Bill. He is absolutely right when he says that the emergency orders and the non-emergency orders that social workers will need to take out to deal with concerns expressed about children lie at the heart of the Bill. I am afraid, however, that the Minister's introduction of the child assessment order has...
Keith Vaz: No. I am approaching the end of my speech. Social workers will rightly condemn the House and the members of the Committee for not acceding to a reasonable request, and the judgment of history will be harsh.
Keith Vaz: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. When will the House have an opportunity to vote on new clause 5?
Keith Vaz: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Are your saying that we can vote on new clause 5 after new clause 4?