Probate: Waiting Times

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, as far as I am aware, the problems in the probate registry are not related to persons working at home, but I will make further inquiries for my noble friend Lord Cormack. As I say, processing times are coming down. If noble Lords and others involved would care to report to me or my colleague in the other place, Minister Freer, their personal experiences, we are on the case and we will address this issue.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister for that offer, because my niece has been told that she will wait two years for probate. In the meantime, she is having to care for a bungalow that was left—she has to pay for the heating and the insurance on the property, but she has very little money to do that. There was a problem with the probate service in 2018, which was pre-Covid. The problem arose because of the cuts by Osborne on the public service generally. We are going to the dogs right across the board with so many of our public services and we need to reverse that now. One way in which we could help people with probate problems is to give them some advance towards the costs that they have to meet. Will the Minister consider that?

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, I invite the noble Lord to write to me or the relevant Minister in the other place with that particular problem so that we can address the issue. That is not the sort of thing that we wish to see happening. We will of course consider all available opportunities to improve the service offer.