Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effect of HM Courts & Tribunals Service Centres answering Grant of Probate calls from March 2020 on the effectiveness of that process.

As of March 2020, all calls are now answered by the Courts & Tribunals Service Centres which are equipped with modern technology to monitor performance levels and make improvements to the service being offered. The service can be contacted Monday to Friday, 8am to 5pm via telephone on 0300 303 0648.

The average wait for people telephoning the national Courts and Tribunal Service centre with queries relating to Probate between April 2019 to March 2020 was 2 minutes 21 seconds.

Volumes and waiting times for calls have risen since March 2020. Waiting times rose to an average of 19 minutes in July 2020 but had been steadily improving prior to November 2020 when the service received the highest number of calls to date and waiting times increased as a result. HMCTS are committed to reducing call waiting times and have improved call routing as well as increasing resources to meet demand.