Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to paragraph 1.5 of her Department's paper on Transforming Our Justice System, published in September 2016, what estimate she has made of the funding required to train and remunerate court staff to make judicial decisions.

HMCTS staff can already be authorised to exercise judicial powers across many jurisdictions. Often these powers form part of a wider role, and it is not possible to separate the funding required for them to make judicial decisions from the rest of their role.

An assessment of the potential costs and benefits across the jurisdictions will be published alongside any forthcoming legislation on this matter and will be subject to decisions made by relevant Procedure Rules Committees