Working on Family Court Reform plus Legislation for Victims & Sentencing

Report back from Andy Slaughter, MP for Hammersmith and Chiswick

Andy Slaughter MP meets young volunteers from Hammersmith and Chiswick

October 31, 2025

This week started with the remaining stages of the Victim and Courts Bill. It is an excellent piece of legislation which will make a difference to many victims. During the third reading, I asked the Minister to rededicate themselves to bringing down the Crown Court backlog as speedy justice is what is needed to help many victims across England and Wales.

We also had the remaining stages of the Sentencing Bill. As Chair of the Justice Committee, I have tabled a number of amendments to help improve the Bill. I reminded the Minister of those amendments and asked if they would be taken forward as the Bill now progresses through the Lords.

It has been a big week for the Committee, firstly with an important evidence session examining reform of the Family Court. The Committee was grateful to hear from witnesses Dame Nicole Jacobs, Domestic Abuse Commissioner for England and Wales, Jacky Tiotto, Chief Executive of CAFCASS, Lisa Harker, Chief Executive of Nuffield Family Justice Observatory and Sir Andrew McFarlane, President of the Family Division, Judiciary of England and Wales.

Reform of the family courts is something that is long overdue and I was very appreciative to all the witnesses who brought their own insight into how we should go about this.

The Committee also published its report: Tackling the drugs crisis in our prisons. The findings during this report are sobering. The Committee found that there was a culture of acceptance within our prison system that must be broken. Without urgent reform to tackle the profitable supply networks, prisons will remain unstable, unsafe and incapable of gaining control over the drugs crisis. There have been lots of media coverage on the report, due to its stark findings.

On Thursday evening I was delighted to attend the Justice for All event celebrating 800 years of the Magna Carta at the Old Bailey. It was a wonderful evening full of inspiring talks from those working in the justice system. I was also lucky enough to meet a group of young volunteers from Hammersmith and Chiswick who are training for jobs in tech and business and helped organise the prestigious series of lectures about reforming the criminal justice system for the event.

Andy Slaughter on his visit to Brook Green Supply

On Friday morning I visited Brook Green Supply and met with Managing Director, Richard Nicholls. The company is based in Hammersmith since they were founded nearly 20 years ago and is now one of the biggest commercial energy suppliers. During my visit I heard about their many interesting ideas on how to make energy sector more efficient and cheaper.

Best wishes,

Andy

andy@andyslaughter.com

Like Reading Articles Like This? Help Us Produce More This site remains committed to providing local community news and public interest journalism. Articles such as the one above are integral to what we do. We aim to feature as much as possible on local societies, charities based in the area, fundraising efforts by residents, community-based initiatives and even helping people find missing pets. We've always done that and won't be changing, in fact we'd like to do more. However, the readership that these stories generates is often below that needed to cover the cost of producing them. Our financial resources are limited and the local media environment is intensely competitive so there is a constraint on what we can do. We are therefore asking our readers to consider offering financial support to these efforts. Any money given will help support community and public interest news and the expansion of our coverage in this area. A suggested monthly payment is £8 but we would be grateful for any amount for instance if you think this site offers the equivalent value of a subscription to a daily printed newspaper you may wish to consider £20 per month. If neither of these amounts is suitable for you then contact info@neighbournet.com and we can set up an alternative. All payments are made through a secure web site. One-off donations are also appreciated. Choose The Amount You Wish To Contribute. If you do support us in this way we'd be interested to hear what kind of articles you would like to see more of on the site – send your suggestions to the editor. For businesses we offer the chance to be a corporate sponsor of community content on the site. For £30 plus VAT per month you will be the designated sponsor of at least one article a month with your logo appearing if supplied. If there is a specific community group or initiative you'd like to support we can make sure your sponsorship is featured on related content for a one off payment of £50 plus VAT. All payments are made through a secure web site.