Civil Proceedings and Magistrates’ Courts Fees (Amendment) Order 2025

Following a substantial review of my department’s costing methodology in relation to court processes, the newly estimated costs of 27 fees were found to have fallen below previous estimates. The revised costing methodology is an improved, more nuanced model that relies on data sources that were not available to the previous methodology. The powers under which the 27 fees are currently set allow them to recover a maximum of their underlying cost. This means that the 27 fees must either be reduced to their estimated cost or kept as they are but restated under the 2014 Act in order to become enhanced fees.

In line with the Treasury principles, it is prudent for the 2014 Act to be used sparingly in setting fees that over-recover their cost. My department’s position is therefore that the enhanced power should be reserved for fees that can generate substantial levels of income to cross-subsidise under-recovering parts of HMCTS, provided that doing so has a minimal impact on access to justice. This is why the majority of the 27 fees in question will be reduced in line with their newly estimated cost by an upcoming negative instrument, with only three enhanced by this affirmative instrument.

I shall now refer to each of the three fees in turn, with a view to explaining the service to which they are attached and why my department deems it appropriate that each is enhanced for the purpose of cross-subsidisation. The first is the 50p fee charged for a council tax liability order. This is payable by local authorities to legally demand payment of council tax arrears. HMCTS receives high volumes of CTLO applications each year which raise significant levels of income to support the running costs of courts and tribunals. In 2022-23, 2.1 million CTLOs were made, resulting in £1.1 million in fee income. Enhancing the fee will not only ensure that this crucial income is retained but remove the cost to the taxpayer of adjusting the fee in line with its regularly fluctuating cost.

The second fee is charged at £22 for a warrant of entry. These warrants are mostly applied for by utility companies to gain legal access to private premises. Similarly to CTLOs, high volumes of these warrants are made each year, generating £7.2 million alone in fee income for HMCTS in 2022-23. Reducing the fee to cost would place a significant pressure on my department at a particularly challenging financial time.

The third fee relates to ships or goods which have been seized in the event of a breach and are then sold off at auction. The Admiralty Court charges several fees which are payable upon sale of a vessel or goods, but the amount payable varies depending on the value of the ship. The fee relevant to this instrument is that charged for ships valued over £100,000. Unlike the flat CTLO and warrant of entry fees, this fee is £1 for every £100 of the ship’s value up to £100,000 and increases by a further 50p for every £100 of the ship’s value above £100,000, with a minimum fee of £205. Although this fee does not attract as many applications as those for a CTLO or warrant of entry, it still provides an important source of income for HMCTS. This is because some ships are sold for several million pounds, meaning that even low levels of annual volumes can result in notable overall income generated.

I reiterate that this instrument merely maintains the status quo by not increasing the value of any of the three fees it restates under the 2014 Act. As a result, there is no anticipated impact on users of the courts and tribunals specifically deriving from this instrument. The negligible bearing this SI will have on HMCTS users was echoed in the responses to the 2023 consultation, undertaken by the previous Government, regarding a series of updates made to court and tribunal fees. Included within this consultation was a proposal to enhance the CTLO fee. The other two fees in question had not yet been identified as over-recovering at the time of the consultation. Of those who responded to this proposal, 63% had no view and no further comments to share, while 17% of respondents agreed with the proposal, stating that enhancing the fee would not negatively impact users given that its current value of 50p would be retained. The two respondents who disagreed had incorrectly assumed that the fee was being increased.

I reassure Members that the number of variations between costs and fee values that are corrected through this instrument and the accompanying negative SI is considered higher than usual. This is because of the revisions brought about through my department’s updated costing methodology. Although the costs underpinning HMCTS fees will be reviewed annually, I do not anticipate the need to amend this many fees year on year, thanks to the improvements made by the new methodology.

The three fees in question are charged in England and Wales only. This instrument will therefore create no effect on the court fees charged in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

This instrument can be seen as a corrective SI which simply delivers minor updates to the statute book for continuity purposes. As such, it does not bring about any practical changes to those affected by court and tribunal fees, and in fact ensures that the fees payable by the relevant court users remain the same. I believe that the amendments affected by this SI and its accompanying negative instrument represent the most pragmatic approach in keeping my department’s fees legislation up to date. I beg to move.