Asked by: James Daly (Conservative - Bury North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps she is taking to help tackle the time taken by the Probate Registry to (a) deal with enquiries from legal practitioners and members of the public and (b) process applications.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
HMCTS is currently onboarding new staff to address Probate contact, and as a result of recent focus on clearing stopped cases, we have seen a reduction in the average time to handle calls. Legal Practitioners can track the progress of their digital applications through their MyHMCTS account.
Despite the unprecedented challenges faced by the Probate Service during the Covid-19 pandemic, the average length of time taken for a grant of probate following the receipt of the documents required has been maintained at between four to six weeks. Probate resource is being stabilised and will result in more staff being focussed on issuing grants to further drive-up disposals.
The most recently published information regarding combined waiting times for a grant of probate, on paper and digital cases, covers April 2021 to June 2021 and is published on gov.uk via Family Court Statistics Quarterly (Table 25): Family Court Statistics Quarterly: April to June 2021 - GOV.UK. (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: James Daly (Conservative - Bury North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the criminal legal aid spend of his Department was in financial years (a) 2018-19, (b) 2019-20 and (c) 2020-21.
Answered by Alex Chalk - Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice
Statistics on legal aid volumes and expenditure are published at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/legal-aid-statistics, and are updated on a quarterly basis. The most recent period for which data is available covers up to and including December 2020.
Figures have therefore been provided for the three most complete financial years as well as the three most recent calendar years for which data is presently available.
Data on the first three quarters only of the 2020/21 Financial Year is also available at gov.uk; figures for the complete financial year will be published on 24 June 2021.
Asked by: James Daly (Conservative - Bury North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to support the long-term financial sustainability of criminal legal aid.
Answered by Alex Chalk - Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice
The Government is taking steps to review the long-term sustainability of the Criminal Legal Aid market. Last year, as part of phase one of this review, we injected up to £51m per annum into Criminal Legal Aid, in areas of work that practitioners told us mattered the most. This year we launched the second phase, an independent review, led by Sir Christopher Bellamy QC, that will consider the sustainability of the whole Criminal Legal Aid system so that it can meet demand now and into the future, provide an effective and efficient service that ensures value for money for the taxpayer and provide defendants with high-quality advice from a diverse range of practitioners. Sir Christopher will submit his recommendations to the Lord Chancellor later this year.