Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of the time taken to grant probate; and what plans he has to improve that service.

The most recently published information regarding combined waiting times for a grant of probate, on paper and digital cases, covers January 2021 to March 2021 and is published on gov.uk via Family Court Statistics Quarterly (Table 25):

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/family-court-statistics-quarterly-january-to-march-2021

Despite the unprecedented challenges faced by the probate service during the Covid 19 pandemic, and as a result of HMCTS increasing resources to meet demand, the average length of time taken for a grant of probate following receipt of the documents required has been maintained at between four to six weeks.

HMCTS continues to invest in the improvement of the online Probate system which was developed as part of the wider HMCTS Reform Programme to further streamline ways of working resulting in a system that is simpler and easy to understand for applicants; is accessible; and more efficient and robust to run.

Further information regarding how HMCTS is collaborating with service users to enhance the service can be found at https://insidehmcts.blog.gov.uk/2021/08/06/collaborating-is-key-to-enhancing-probate-users-experience-of-using-myhmcts/