Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to reduce the backlog of correspondence from hon. Members.

The Home Office has recently completed a correspondence recovery programme which saw it return to its 20-day service standard for new correspondence in mid-January, and has seen a reduction in overdue cases from 30,500 to 350.

The Home Office has embedded new processes to increase resilience in the event of future unexpected spikes in correspondence, is planning a series of events with Members to share information about potential issues, and now has in place a team of Ministerial correspondence managers to ensure deadlines are met.