Draft Non-Contentious Probate (Fees) Order 2018

Debate between Catherine West and Gloria De Piero

Thursday 7th February 2019 General Committees

[Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. There is fierce opposition to these proposed changes, from legal experts, charities and legislative bodies. The Government plan a probate fee hike from the current flat fee of £215—or £155 if the application is made by a solicitor—to a sliding range between £250 and £6,000, depending on the value of the estate. The changes encompass fee increases to a level that is nearly 28 times what some people currently pay. The House of Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments and the Law Society, among many others, have joined a chorus of condemnation of the proposals.

Apart from the staggering increase in costs, the proposed fees have no bearing on the actual cost of the service provided. The services involved in a grant of probate are fundamentally the same, regardless of the value of the estate. The proposals are clearly disproportionate and excessive, but they also make a mockery of the long-standing principle that fees for a public service should recover the cost of providing it, and no more. I am frankly shocked that more Conservative Members are not fighting to maintain that fiscal convention.

Combined with the Government’s conviction that funds raised through the changes can be reinvested elsewhere in the struggling justice system, the proposals represent what the Law Society identifies as

“a tax on grieving families”.

The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee has likewise suggested:

“To charge a fee so far above the actual cost of the service arguably amounts to a ‘stealth tax’”.

It is true that Government cuts have left the justice system in crisis. Prisons are overcrowded, the probation service is overstretched, courts are closing and people across the country are excluded from access to justice because of devastating cuts to legal aid. It is also true that time and time again the Opposition have called for the investment and resources that the justice system needs to operate properly. It is unacceptable that, through these changes, the Government intend to place the burden of covering those costs on the shoulders of vulnerable, grieving people.

[Catherine West]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does she agree that all these problems began when the Ministry of Justice was led by someone known commonly in the press as “failing Grayling”—