Business of the House

Chris Elmore Excerpts

Thursday 15th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

May I first congratulate my hon. Friend, who is absolutely tireless? He is very modest in giving all the credit to the local council, because everyone in this House knows that everything that goes right in Cleethorpes is thanks to his campaigning efforts, energy, vim and vigour. He is right to say that existing grammar schools continue but that the law prevents the establishment of new selective schools. Wherever a local authority has identified a need for a new school, it must run a competition to establish a new free school. The local authority publishes a specification for a new school and invites bids from sponsors to run the school. However, he makes a very valuable point that I will of course take up with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education, although I encourage him to apply for an Adjournment debate to raise this specific issue, on behalf of his council, on the Floor of the House.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House ask Ministry of Justice Ministers to make a written statement about what is happening in the probate service? My constituent Mrs Dixon started probate in May 2020. Fourteen months on, she has yet to receive a satisfactory response from the probate service. This is not because of disputes within the family or because of issues with wills; it is because her paperwork has been lost by the probate service and has then been transferred between offices across the United Kingdom so that staff within the service were not able to confirm who was leading on her probate. This is clearly not acceptable in what can only be described as a truly distressing time under normal circumstances, never mind in a pandemic. I would be grateful if the Leader of the House could make some inquiries and ensure that this is not a wider problem within the probate service, which is under enormous pressure because of the scale of the number of loved ones lost over the past 18 months.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My deepest sympathies go to Mrs Dixon. It must be terribly difficult when dealing with a death in the family then to find that probate is not working efficiently and that she is being passed from pillar to post. On the assumption that the hon. Gentleman has already been in touch with the Lord Chancellor and his Department, I will take this up with the Department immediately after business questions to try to ensure that at least he gets an answer in relation to Mrs Dixon, although I cannot necessarily promise a statement on the wider issues concerning the probate service.