Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much of the £1 billion for the courts reform programme (a) has been spent on consultancies and, (b) is projected to be spent on consultancies (i) in total and (ii) as a proportion of overall spending.

The Court Reform Programme has spent approximately £26.4m on consultancies between 2014/15 and 2017/18. This is the equivalent of 8% of the total Reform implementation spending during this period.

We are projected to spend approximately £25.7m on consultancies in 2018/19 and 2019/20. This is the equivalent of 6% of expected implementation spending during this period.

We have no current consultancy commitments beyond 2019/20 to support Reform.