Asked by: Luke Murphy (Labour - Basingstoke)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the reasons for current waiting times within the Specialist Team of the Probate Registry, and of the impact of those delays on bereaved families; and what measures his Department is introducing to reduce the distress and financial uncertainty caused by protracted waiting times.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Applications for Probate can be delayed where more information is needed from the applicant, a caveat is in place or where cases are more complex. HM Courts & Tribunals Service is investing in more staff, alongside system and process improvements to improve timeliness and further build capability for the more complex cases, which include cases involving a lost will.
The Ministry of Justice publishes regular data on probate timeliness in our regular quarterly family court statistics bulletin: Family Court Statistics Quarterly - GOV.UK.
Asked by: Luke Murphy (Labour - Basingstoke)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent assessment he has made of the potential implications for his policies of the backlog within the Probate Registry; and what steps his Department is taking to expedite the processing of applications for Grants of Probate, including in cases involving lost wills.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Applications for Probate can be delayed where more information is needed from the applicant, a caveat is in place or where cases are more complex. HM Courts & Tribunals Service is investing in more staff, alongside system and process improvements to improve timeliness and further build capability for the more complex cases, which include cases involving a lost will.
The Ministry of Justice publishes regular data on probate timeliness in our regular quarterly family court statistics bulletin: Family Court Statistics Quarterly - GOV.UK.
Asked by: Luke Murphy (Labour - Basingstoke)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps her department is taking to increase the use of phone blocking (a) techniques and (b) technologies in prisons.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Vice Chamberlain (HM Household) (Whip, House of Commons)
His Majesty’s Prison & Probation Service (HMPPS) is committed to tackling the threat to prison security posed by illicit mobile telephones. We have a wide-ranging programme in place to prevent them from entering prisons; to detect and disrupt their use by prisoners if they are smuggled in; and to investigate cases where a prisoner may have committed an offence.
As part of their local security strategies, prisons are able to deploy a range of measures to detect items of contraband, including X-ray body scanners, and Enhanced Gate Security that utilises X-ray baggage scanners and metal detection. Owing to security and operational sensitivities, however, it would not be appropriate to comment in detail on the countermeasures HMPPS has in place.
Asked by: Luke Murphy (Labour - Basingstoke)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps her Department is taking to help support victims of domestic abuse.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
This Government has committed to halving violence against women and girls in a decade.
We have launched new Domestic Abuse Protection Orders in selected areas, combining the strongest elements of other orders to protect victims from all forms of domestic abuse.
From February, offenders sentenced for 12 months plus for coercive and controlling behaviour are now automatically eligible for management under Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements.
Asked by: Luke Murphy (Labour - Basingstoke)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 16 January 2025 to Question 23643 on Hampshire Police and Crime Commissioner, for what reasons funding amounts for individual Police and Crime Commissioner areas are not routinely published; and if she will make it her policy to publish these amounts in the future.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Funding amounts for the commissioning of victims’ services by individual Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) have not previously been systematically published on gov.uk.
Individual PCCs publish annual reports which includes funding for victim services. Furthermore, a breakdown of grant funding is publicly available on the Government Grants Information System, which is released annually in March covering the previous financial period of grant spending.
PCCs commission victim services with funding outside of Ministry of Justice allocations, and individual allocations do not take into account any co-commissioning arrangements. As such, individual allocations will not provide the whole picture for victims’ funding in an area.
Asked by: Luke Murphy (Labour - Basingstoke)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much funding has been allocated to the Hampshire Police and Crime Commissioner (a) in total and (b) for support services for survivors of sexual assault and abuse since 2012.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The 42 Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) in England and Wales receive annual grant funding from the Ministry of Justice’s victim and witness budget to commission local practical, emotional, and therapeutic support services for victims of all crime types.
My Department has committed £154 million per annum on a multi-year basis across this spending review period, up to the end of March 2025. For 2024/25 we provided £41 million of ringfenced funding for the recruitment of Independent Sexual and Domestic Violence Advisors, and £21 million of ringfenced funding for community-based domestic abuse and sexual violence services. These funding commitments have enabled us to provide tailored support to enable victims of sexual violence to cope and recover from the devastating effect of their crimes. Funding amounts for individual PCC areas are not routinely published.
The PCC for Hampshire publishes details on services commissioned in their annual reports available at: Money - Hampshire Police and Crime Commissioner.