Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to tackle the backlog of probate applications.

Despite the unprecedented challenges faced by the probate service during the Covid-19 pandemic, and the increased volume of applications that have been seen since, the average length of time taken for a grant of probate following receipt of the documents required has been maintained at between five and seven weeks.

HMCTS has increased resources to meet the higher demand and is further increasing resourcing to reduce outstanding caseload back to pre-Covid levels and further bring down overall timeliness on digital and paper applications.

The improvement of the online probate system remains a priority for HMCTS, to ensure more applications can be issued first time and resources can be focused on reducing waiting times.