Mike Freer corrected a written answer on Probate

25 April 2023 · Commons written answer · Ministry of Justice

John Spellar (Labour, Warley) asked written question 117447 on 6 January 2023. Mike Freer answered on 16 January 2023 for the Ministry of Justice, and Mike Freer corrected the answer on 25 April 2023. The correction replaced 3 figures (12,923, 38,245, 4805) with 5 figures (13,536, 30,656, 53,253, 7,247, 9,873). Altogether 271 words differ between the two versions.

The question

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many probate cases are under consideration in England; and what proportion of those cases have been waiting for a decision for six weeks or more.

Original and corrected answer

Struck through: original only. Bold: correction only.

Original	Corrected
~~The total amount of unassessed~~ probate cases where evidence has been received to enable a case to be assessed is 12,923. 4805 of these cases are over 6 weeks ~~since~~ the date the evidence was received. In addition, there are 38,245 cases which are either waiting for evidence, such as the original ~~will, to arrive,~~ are subject to ~~a legal hold following an application from another party or have been stopped due to an error or missing documentation~~ and ~~are waiting for a response from~~ the ~~applicant.~~ HMCTS has increased resources to meet the higher demand following an increased number of estates requiring probate and is further increasing resourcing to 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.	There were 53,253 probate cases in the Open Caseload 1 as at 31 December. Of those 30,656 were more than 6 weeks old 1 . Of the cases over six weeks old 13,536 were stopped, 7,247 were awaiting documentation and 9,873 were ready to progress. 1 Data as at 31 December in line the official published stats. The administration of probate applications is dealt with as a national service, covering England and Wales. The open caseload excludes cases older than 6 months. 2 The time outstanding is counted from the application submission date recorded in the case management system, except for digital applications with a Will, where the date of receipt of the original Will by HMCTS is used. This data is management Information. The management information presented in this table reflects what is recorded on relevant case-management systems on the date of extraction. The case management systems are continually updated and so the information presented will differ from previously published information. Management information can differ from the quality assured MOJ official statistics, which form the agreed definitive position. Although care is taken when processing and analysing the data, the details are subject to inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale case management system and is the best data that is available. HMCTS has increased resources to meet the higher demand following an increased number of estates requiring probate and is further increasing resourcing to 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.

Original

Corrected

~~The total amount of unassessed~~ probate cases where evidence has been received to enable a case to be assessed is 12,923.
4805 of these cases are over 6 weeks ~~since~~ the date the evidence was received.
In addition, there are 38,245 cases which are either waiting for evidence, such as the original ~~will, to arrive,~~ are subject to ~~a legal hold following an application from another party or have been stopped due to an error or missing documentation~~ and ~~are waiting for a response from~~ the ~~applicant.~~
HMCTS has increased resources to meet the higher demand following an increased number of estates requiring probate and is further increasing resourcing to 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.

There were 53,253 probate cases in the Open Caseload 1 as at 31 December. Of those 30,656 were more than 6 weeks old 1 . Of the cases over six weeks old 13,536 were stopped, 7,247 were awaiting documentation and 9,873 were ready to progress.
1 Data as at 31 December in line the official published stats. The administration of probate applications is dealt with as a national service, covering England and Wales. The open caseload excludes cases older than 6 months.
2 The time outstanding is counted from the application submission date recorded in the case management system, except for digital applications with a Will, where the date of receipt of the original Will by HMCTS is used.
This data is management Information. The management information presented in this table reflects what is recorded on relevant case-management systems on the date of extraction. The case management systems are continually updated and so the information presented will differ from previously published information. Management information can differ from the quality assured MOJ official statistics, which form the agreed definitive position. Although care is taken when processing and analysing the data, the details are subject to inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale case management system and is the best data that is available.
HMCTS has increased resources to meet the higher demand following an increased number of estates requiring probate and is further increasing resourcing to 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.

The question and answer on the Parliament website.

Receipt

Read from	https://questions-statements-api.parliament.uk/api/writtenquestions/questions/1564330?expandMember=true
Date read	15 October 2026
SHA-256	`c12d766357ba02a991514907e5fb6a2eb92ce598230fcfb6253127f53ab37fb3`