Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to improve its response times in replying to correspondence from hon. Members.

The Department works to a target of responding to 95% of MPs written correspondence within 20 working days. Performance has been impacted by a very significant increase in the volume of correspondence received following the Afghanistan crisis.

The Department recognises it has not been able to meet its service standard in some cases, but has implemented an action plan, which includes recruiting additional staff, to clear backlogs and drive up performance.