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Legal Aid

I welcome the assurances that my hon. and learned Friend has given on immigration cases and more complex cases that deal with ethnic minority groups. However, she mentioned criminal cases, so will she say whether she is also extending the examination of the flat-rate system to family law cases, many of which are long and complex? I have been approached by constituents—including Pauline Troy, who is a family law practitioner who has worked on complex cases throughout her legal career—with fears that colleagues may be encouraged to do what is called skimming. In other words, owing to the huge pressures of the more complex cases, they either do not take them or go through them more quickly, which is, of course, to the detriment of the children.