While ministers debate delaying youth minimum wage rises, another part of government has been working at warp speed. Family court officials processed 12,032 specific issue orders in 2023, compared to just 36 the year before.

That's a 33,322% increase in a single year. To put this in perspective: if your energy bill went up by the same percentage, a £100 monthly payment would become £33,422.

These aren't parking tickets or minor administrative orders. Section 8 specific issue orders are heavyweight legal interventions. They're what judges use when parents can't agree on major decisions about their children: which school, what medical treatment, whether to relocate abroad. Each one represents a family breakdown so severe that a court had to step in.

The administrative cost alone is staggering. Processing 12,000 additional orders means thousands more court hours, legal assessments, and administrative oversight. Each order requires judicial time that typically costs hundreds of pounds per hour in court resources.

But here's the contradiction that should worry taxpayers: this explosion happened during a year when the government repeatedly claimed to be streamlining public services and cutting bureaucracy. While other departments faced budget pressures, the family court system was processing orders at an unprecedented rate.

The timing matters too. This surge occurred as separated families faced mounting cost-of-living pressures. When parents are struggling with energy bills and housing costs, disputes over children's living arrangements become more fraught. A move to a cheaper area might save one parent money but devastate the other's access to their children.

What's particularly striking is the precision of this increase. You don't jump from 36 to 12,032 orders by accident. This suggests either a dramatic change in how these orders are classified, a policy shift that encouraged their use, or a genuine explosion in family disputes requiring judicial intervention.

The Ministry of Justice hasn't explained this surge, but the numbers tell their own story. Every one of these 12,000 orders represents a child caught in a legal dispute between their parents. That's 12,000 families where private disagreement became public expense.

While politicians debate the cost of raising youth wages by a few pounds per hour, they've been silent about this massive expansion in family court intervention. (Source: Ministry of Justice, Family Court Statistics -- Family_Court_Tables__Jul-Sep_2024_ -- Table_3)