The Government welcomes the Civil Justice Council’s (CJC) review and is carefully considering all its recommendations.

As announced on 17 December 2025, the Government’s priority is to accept the CJC’s two primary recommendations and legislate to clarify that Litigation Funding Agreements (LFAs) are not Damages-Based Agreements and introduce light-touch regulation of LFAs. As we determine the appropriate form of regulation, we will consider the most suitable definition of a LFA. We will continue to engage with stakeholders as we develop this policy to ensure that any future framework provides for proportionate and effective regulation.

Once this work has been completed, we will consider the CJC’s remaining recommendations, including those relating to portfolio funding, in more detail. We will provide further information in due course.

The Law Commission report, which we welcome, was published on 18 March this year and is the first part of a wider project that will also consider the legal framework for new funerary methods and the rights and obligations in relation to funerals and the deceased. That last sub-project is expected to conclude by the end of 2027 and, as the noble Lord rightly says, the Law Commission will publish draft legislation in mid-2028.

There is also a separate Law Commission project looking at offences against the deceased. All these things are interrelated. We will consider all the recommendations issued recently by the Law Commission and the various workstreams to see what is the most practical approach to publishing our response, including timing, to make sure that we do not do things piecemeal in a way that, in the end, makes things worse rather than better.

As announced on 17 December 2025, the Government intends to accept the two key recommendations of the Civil Justice Council’s (CJC) review:

We will legislate to mitigate the effects of the PACCAR judgment by clarifying that Litigation Funding Agreements are not Damages-Based Agreements and will introduce proportionate regulation of Litigation Funding Agreements.

We intend to legislate to implement these changes when parliamentary time allows. Once this work has been completed, we will consider the CJC’s remaining recommendations in more detail.

We recognise the importance of maintaining access to justice, whilst avoiding issues stemming from speculative or unmeritorious claims. The new regulations will take a balanced and holistic approach; this involves appropriate consideration of the position of claimants and defendants and the courts, as well as the legal and litigation funding sectors.

The regulations will complement existing safeguards preventing speculative and disproportionate litigation, such as the power, provided in Part 3 of the Civil Procedure Rules, for the court to dismiss any claim which has no reasonable grounds.

The Government is confident that the CJC has appropriately reviewed litigation funding and thus we have not found it necessary to make our own formal assessment of the potential impact of third-party funded collective actions on court capacity, judicial workload, or case duration. We also do not hold data relating to the costs to the public sector of third-party funded collective actions.

As announced on 17 December 2025, the Government intends to accept the two key recommendations of the Civil Justice Council’s (CJC) review:

We will legislate to mitigate the effects of the PACCAR judgment by clarifying that Litigation Funding Agreements are not Damages-Based Agreements and will introduce proportionate regulation of Litigation Funding Agreements.

We intend to legislate to implement these changes when parliamentary time allows. Once this work has been completed, we will consider the CJC’s remaining recommendations in more detail.

We recognise the importance of maintaining access to justice, whilst avoiding issues stemming from speculative or unmeritorious claims. The new regulations will take a balanced and holistic approach; this involves appropriate consideration of the position of claimants and defendants and the courts, as well as the legal and litigation funding sectors.

The regulations will complement existing safeguards preventing speculative and disproportionate litigation, such as the power, provided in Part 3 of the Civil Procedure Rules, for the court to dismiss any claim which has no reasonable grounds.

The Government is confident that the CJC has appropriately reviewed litigation funding and thus we have not found it necessary to make our own formal assessment of the potential impact of third-party funded collective actions on court capacity, judicial workload, or case duration. We also do not hold data relating to the costs to the public sector of third-party funded collective actions.

As announced on 17 December 2025, the Government intends to accept the two key recommendations of the Civil Justice Council’s (CJC) review:

We will legislate to mitigate the effects of the PACCAR judgment by clarifying that Litigation Funding Agreements are not Damages-Based Agreements and will introduce proportionate regulation of Litigation Funding Agreements.

We intend to legislate to implement these changes when parliamentary time allows. Once this work has been completed, we will consider the CJC’s remaining recommendations in more detail.

We recognise the importance of maintaining access to justice, whilst avoiding issues stemming from speculative or unmeritorious claims. The new regulations will take a balanced and holistic approach; this involves appropriate consideration of the position of claimants and defendants and the courts, as well as the legal and litigation funding sectors.

The regulations will complement existing safeguards preventing speculative and disproportionate litigation, such as the power, provided in Part 3 of the Civil Procedure Rules, for the court to dismiss any claim which has no reasonable grounds.

The Government is confident that the CJC has appropriately reviewed litigation funding and thus we have not found it necessary to make our own formal assessment of the potential impact of third-party funded collective actions on court capacity, judicial workload, or case duration. We also do not hold data relating to the costs to the public sector of third-party funded collective actions.

As announced on 17 December 2025, the Government intends to accept the two key recommendations of the Civil Justice Council’s (CJC) review:

We will legislate to mitigate the effects of the PACCAR judgment by clarifying that Litigation Funding Agreements are not Damages-Based Agreements and will introduce proportionate regulation of Litigation Funding Agreements.

We intend to legislate to implement these changes when parliamentary time allows. Once this work has been completed, we will consider the CJC’s remaining recommendations in more detail.

We recognise the importance of maintaining access to justice, whilst avoiding issues stemming from speculative or unmeritorious claims. The new regulations will take a balanced and holistic approach; this involves appropriate consideration of the position of claimants and defendants and the courts, as well as the legal and litigation funding sectors.

The regulations will complement existing safeguards preventing speculative and disproportionate litigation, such as the power, provided in Part 3 of the Civil Procedure Rules, for the court to dismiss any claim which has no reasonable grounds.

The Government is confident that the CJC has appropriately reviewed litigation funding and thus we have not found it necessary to make our own formal assessment of the potential impact of third-party funded collective actions on court capacity, judicial workload, or case duration. We also do not hold data relating to the costs to the public sector of third-party funded collective actions.

The noble Lord makes a number of good points. One of the issues here is the question of the independent celebrant, because not everybody thinks it is a good idea to license independent celebrants—for example, humanists think it is not a good idea to license independent celebrants. That is why this has to be looked at and why we have to consult widely. However, we have given the commitment that we will legalise humanist marriages—it is just a question of making sure that we do it in a way that does not create further inequalities.

The UK Government are committed to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. I give that commitment to the

noble Lord: that is what we are committed to. The policies that we are bringing forward, which are subject to consultation, will be in line with those policy objectives.

One of the key areas is ensuring that, through the education system, we strengthen relationship education, personal relationship education and, in particular, respect for young girls. That is a very difficult job, because there is a mass of social media that has an exact opposite approach to the type of things that we wish to see within the education system, so we are also, through the Online Safety Act, looking at what we need to do with online harm, because the world has moved on, even in the past 10 to 15 years, and will continue to do so. That is a very important point and one that the Government are very much apprised of and trying to find some resolution to.

Information on the numbers of children in need in England by gender and age as at 31 March 2024 are published in the statistics release ‘Children in need in England’. This data has been available since 31 October 2024 and can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/017e9ab0-556a-4e52-0c34-08de07233b94.

Figures for the year ending 31 March 2025 are available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/39cc1f07-37e5-4b8c-e315-08de1acd7617.

Information on the numbers of children in need (CIN) in England is published in the statistics release 'Children in need' in England, which is available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/children-in-need/2024. The data shows that the number of CIN aged between 10 and 15 has increased over the last 10 years, but has remained stable since 2018. The number of CIN aged 16 and over has increased gradually over time from 70,680 (18% of all CIN) at 31 March 2014 to 106,780 (27% of all CIN) at 31 March 2024.

The drivers of activity in children's social care analysis highlights an increase in factors affecting teenagers in the care system, which may contribute to an increase in teenagers entering care. The analysis can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1080111/Drivers_of_Activity_in_Children_s_Social_Care.pdf.

Challenges like this are why, as part of our Plan for Change, the government is investing over £2 billion over the course of this parliament to provide more help for families and better protection for children through the Families First Partnership programme.

Through the Families First Partnership programme, backed by over £2 billion of funding between 2025/26 and 2028/29, the government is rolling out reforms to Family Help to ensure that all children, including teenagers, and their families, can access the right targeted support at the earliest opportunity.

In Family Help, multi-disciplinary teams will be embedded into the hearts of communities, providing access to a range of professionals and services tailored to local needs, including youth services. Where appropriate, youth workers can function as lead practitioners, being responsible for building relationships with, and coordinating support for, teenagers who need it.

To date, we have seen examples of local areas establishing specialist Family Help teams focused on contextual safeguarding, some of which bring together social workers and youth workers to support young people at risk of harm or experiencing exploitation.

We agree that it is right to focus on improving the practical application of Gillick and the assessments of competency. We have already committed to consulting on the guidance for assessing competence in mental health settings in the revised Mental Health Act Code of Practice, with the intention to provide further clarity to decision makers. This will include engagement with key stakeholders and clinical decision makers with experience of assessing competence in children.

As part of this, we can look to summarise and explain what case law has said on how competence should be assessed, including Re S (Wardship: Removal to Ghana). It remains our position that we would not consider a statutory test in the Mental Health Act.

The Government welcomes the Civil Justice Council review of litigation funding, which will help inform the approach to potential reforms. We will outline next steps in due course.

The noble Lord raises a number of very important questions, which will, of course, be answered by the interim chair when that name is announced. The workload of the Court of Appeal is an important factor in this, and the tests for how those cases are referred up to the Court of Appeal are important as well. As I said earlier, the answer to the question lies in both the Law Commission report and the work of the new interim chair.

Of course, there are a lot of age-disputed cases in the system, so it is difficult to give the noble Lord a precise answer on that. There are decision-making pilots for children which are much quicker at making decisions. They are taken through a multi-agency structure of the local authority, health and police as a minimum. The safeguarding partners

have a responsibility to obtain and present evidence at meetings where decisions are taken, so they are dealt with slightly differently.