Asked by: Derek Thomas (Conservative - St Ives)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what his Department's timetable is for publishing an interim response to the report published by the Law Commission entitled Celebrating Marriage: A New Weddings Law.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Marriage will always be one of our most important institutions, and the Government has a duty to consider the implications of any changes to the law in this area very carefully.
The Government is considering the Law Commissions’ 57 recommendations for legislative reform and a response will be published in due course.
Asked by: Derek Thomas (Conservative - St Ives)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of processing times for probate applications.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The probate service received record levels of applications during 2022 and this has continued to grow with significantly higher levels of receipts during January to March 2023. Whilst HMCTS has increased resources to meet the higher demand the training and upskilling of those new and existing staff has led to applications taking longer in the short term.
HMCTS is focused on increasing outputs to reduce overall timeliness on all types of applications and the average length of time taken for a grant of probate, following receipt of the documents required, is 9 weeks during January to March 2023.
Average waiting times for probate grants, are routinely published on gov.uk via Family Court Statistics Quarterly and currently cover the period up to March 2023.
Asked by: Derek Thomas (Conservative - St Ives)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to make it easier for parents of young people with learning difficulties to apply to the Court of Protection for deputyship.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Government is committed to addressing barriers to provide better support to all individuals who lack mental capacity.
For example, the Court of Protection has reviewed its application processes, and at the beginning of the year launched a new, simpler online system which has reduced wating times from 24 weeks to 8 weeks following the results of a successful pilot. We have also recently published new guidance for families on how to make financial decisions on behalf of a young person who lacks mental capacity, which includes a guide to the Court of Protection application process. Families may also now be eligible for a fee remission for their applications, even after their child has turned 18.
We will continue to review and revise the process and the court will continue to identify areas for improvement.
Asked by: Derek Thomas (Conservative - St Ives)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what data he holds on the number of fines imposed under the Control of Dogs Order 1992.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The Ministry of Justice publishes information on the number of fines issued by the courts between 2017 and 2021, for offences under the Control of Dogs Order 1992 in the Outcomes by Offence data tool: December 2021.
Information on the number of fines issued for this offence prior to 2017 can be found in the Principal offence proceedings and outcomes by Home Office offence code data tool.
Note: This offence code includes offences ‘Contrary to article 3 of the Control of Dogs Order 1992, and sections 72 and 75 of the Animal Health Act 1981’. This is the most granular level of data we hold on this legislation in the Court Proceedings Database.
Asked by: Derek Thomas (Conservative - St Ives)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what progress his Department has made on implementing the recommendations from its report of June 2020, Assessing Risk of Harm to Children and Parents in Private Law Children Cases; and what approach his Department plans to take on to cases decided prior to full implementation of those recommendations.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
We are making good progress against the commitments outlined in our Implementation Plan that was published alongside the ‘Assessing Risk of Harm to Children and Parents in Private Law Children Cases’ report.
Changes were brought in as part of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, including automatic eligibility for special measures in the Family Court, the prohibition of cross examination of victims by perpetrators or alleged perpetrators, and a clarification of the law on the use of section 91(14) orders in domestic abuse circumstances. The special measures provision is already in force and the remaining measures are expected to be commenced later this spring.
We are currently undertaking a review into the presumption of parental involvement and its risk of harm exception, in private law children cases. The research for this review is expected to be complete by the end of the year. In February we launched the Integrated Domestic Abuse Court (IDAC) pilot to test a more investigative approach to private law proceedings in courts in Dorset and North Wales.
On 26 March 2021, we launched the Family Mediation Voucher Scheme, which offers up to £500 towards eligible mediation cases, encouraging people to resolve their disputes outside of court where safe and appropriate to do so. We allocated £3.3m throughout the 2021-22 financial year, helping 6,726 families in the period to mediate on issues around their children. As of 24 April 2022, 7,916 vouchers have been distributed, and we will be making an official announcement on funding for the 2022-23 financial year shortly.