Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the letter to all MPs from the Home Office MP Engagement team, dated 6 September 2022, if she will make it her policy to employ more staff to clear the backlog of MP enquiries and reinstate separate written responses to each MP enquiry; what assessment she has made of the impact on the ability of MPs to track and follow up on complex cases of her proposal to suspend written responses and replace these with telephone calls; and if she will make a statement.

Staffing levels in the MP Account Management team have increased by 20% over the last 6 months and recruitment is continuing, with additional staff joining over the coming weeks. Performance against target has been impacted by an unprecedented increase in MP’s queries following the Afghan evacuation, Ukraine crisis and HMPO application surge.

The department has launched a recovery plan which will lead to incremental improvements in service standards over the coming months with a return to a 20-day service standard.

We will review our future operating model as we go through the recovery period, and Ministers are considering this.