Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to reduce the length of time taken for a Grant of Probate to be issued.

The most recently published information regarding waiting times for a grant of probate covers July 2020 to September 2020 and is published on gov.uk via Family Court Statistics Quarterly (Table 26).

In 2020 the level of applications being made increased and the service faced unprecedented challenges due to the impact of Covid 19.

Despite this, and as a result of HMCTS increasing resources to meet demand, the average length of time taken for a Grant of Probate to be issued improved quarter on quarter throughout the year.

HMCTS continues to invest in the improvement of the online Probate system which was developed as part of the wider HMCTS Reform Programme to further streamline ways of working resulting in a system that is simpler and easy to understand for applicants; is accessible; and more efficient and robust to run.