As a life-long family practitioner, I cannot praise District Judge Glover’s comments highly enough. Politically correct or not, he has hit the nail squarely on the head.

‘Access to justice’ was never more than a Labour soundbite, a lofty-sounding aspiration without any practical grounding. The reality, increasingly, is the opposite. While everyone would accept that economies can be made to bring down costs, in large measure they already have been. I have never seen such low morale among court staff. The unchanging central fact, unaltered by the economy, is that people need access to appropriate professional help when their families break down, in order to get to the other side where they can start again.

This is a very poor place to cut costs. It is a false economy, penny-wise perhaps but very definitely pound-foolish. This is more important to the fabric of our society and to maximising the chances of our children than any consideration of aircraft carriers, fishing quotas, reform of planning guidance or the like.District Judge Glover’s article should be compulsory reading for every MP.

Sharon Cloud, The Family Law Partnership, Leatherhead