Question to the Ministry of Justice:

What recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the probate system.

Waiting times in the probate service have recently increased. However, following urgent action by the courts service, they are now starting to improve.

The temporary delays were the result of more work coming into the system and the impact of the initial move to a new IT system for managing probate work.

Now that move is complete, and the unusually high workload has been dealt with, we expect waiting times to continue to improve – and be back to normal levels in the coming weeks.