Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the average processing time was for probate applications by the Court and Tribunals Service for each quarter in (a) 2019, (b) 2020, (c) 2021, (d) 2022 and the first and second quarter in (e) 2023.

Average waiting times for probate grants, by calendar year and quarter, are available in table 24 of the Family Court Statistics Quarterly which is published on gov.uk: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/family-court-statistics-quarterly-january-to-march-2023.

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.