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Women, Justice and Gender Equality

My hon. Friend raised that point at a recent private meeting. I do not know why that step has been taken, but I am sure that there is a rationale behind it. I will take up the matter with Home Office Ministers and come back to her. It is germane to mention that Baroness Corston, who has been holding an inquiry into vulnerable women and, in particular, vulnerable women in prison, which will be reporting very soon. I expect her report to make recommendations for situations such as the one that my hon. Friend has raised. I have discussed trying to get women to be sentenced in a different way, and I have talked about the thin line between being thrown into chaos and turning to crime. There must be a situation for intervention between the two, and my Department is working to increase the awareness of available advice and information, which can help people whose lives are becoming chaotic by providing early interventions to solve problems before they escalate, by helping with fair and proportionate dispute resolution and by delivering expeditious justice. When a person is not in the territory of the specific help provided by independent sexual violence advisers, can we none the less catch that person to stop their debt problems by giving them good early advice, to help them to hold on to their house and to prevent them from drifting into crime in order to ensure that they keep their children? Our legal aid scheme plays a crucial role in that respect. Our current legal aid reform proposals have generated a good deal of debate, but what is lost in that debate far too often is that the whole point of carrying out the reform is to make sure that we can join other funders who can give non-legal advice, and thereby give easy access to our legal advice, so we can help as many vulnerable and socially excluded people as possible. We must do that by focusing legal aid away from criminal legal aid towards civil and family legal aid, and by making both systems as efficient as possible. That is what we are doing, and that is what we will do. Women, justice and gender equality in the UK is a complex subject. I have only just begun to address some specifics in this opening speech, but I hope that I have set out some of the work that we are doing to meet the needs of women in our society. I guess that all hon. Members who are here already understand that it will take a lot more. Let us celebrate ourselves, and let us celebrate the progress that we have made. Other women in the world are, like us, considering these topics on this important day. Let us resolve to commit yet more energy and to work in solidarity for yet another year towards a more equal world for women.