Ms Alannah Owens:

Linking with the Deputy's point on the lack of female representation among family lawyers, we see not only that as a problem, but also the lack of ethnic minority representation. That extends to services more generally. It really emphasises the importance of culturally appropriate services that need to be made available so that when women get to engage with qualified family lawyers, they can proceed with and take their cases forward, rather than finding themselves at cultural and language impasses that may mean they do not take their cases forward to the courts or that when they are in the court, they receive an experience that is not conducive to them being able to put themselves forward and make their cases clearly in a sensitive way.