Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, If he will make an assessment of recent trends in the number of urgent court proceedings being brought before the family courts since the beginning of the covid-19 outbreak; and if he will make a statement.

Her Majesty’s Court & Tribunal Service (HMCTS) have agreed a set of business priorities with the judiciary for the family courts and are clear that all urgent family proceedings must be dealt with during the COVID-19 outbreak.

Data on workload in the family court, including many but not all types of urgent applications, will be published in our scheduled published monthly MI and official statistics on preannounced dates. Information can be found at the following links:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/hmcts-management-information

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/family-court-statistics-quarterly