Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the average cost of a (a) court and (b) tribunal hearing transcript is.

The cost of a court or tribunal transcript varies, depending on the length of the hearing, whether the transcript is new or a copy, and the speed of delivery requested.

HMCTS contracts with external suppliers to provide court transcripts who hold data on orders that they receive. While HMCTS does not retain data centrally on the costs of court or tribunal transcripts, supplier Management Information data for the period January to December 2024 was extracted as follows:

• Total number of court and tribunal transcripts produced: 45,178

• The average cost of a transcript order between January and December 2024 based on the transcripts produced: £117.00 (excl. VAT)

Court and tribunal hearings differ significantly in length (from hearings that last less than a day to trials that can last several weeks or months) and transcript costs are in proportion to the volume of audio that must be transcribed and checked on a case-by-case basis. While costs of shorter hearings may be lower, full hearings or trials can cost significantly more. Therefore, the average cost calculated above using supplier data is not reflective of the full range of court and tribunal hearings and is not a general average cost of transcripts.