Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the adequacy of the timeliness of responses to correspondence from hon. Members.

The FCDO receives the ninth highest volume of correspondence across Whitehall Departments. We have responded to 68% of ministerial correspondence within Cabinet Office deadlines in the last quarter compared to 48% for all government departments. We have reduced outstanding correspondence by 57% over the last 6 months. Following the significant and ongoing increase in correspondence received since 2020, the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office has begun a focused programme of work to streamline processes and improve response times to tackle the high volume.