Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many cases have been handled by the MP Account Manager team in the last 6 months; and what proportion of these cases received a substantial response within 20 working days.

The Department works to a target of responding to 95% of Hon. Members written correspondence within 20 working days.

Performance has been impacted by a very significant increase in the volume of correspondence received, including the unprecedented amount of correspondence about the situation in Afghanistan and more recently in Ukraine. Ministers and officials also had to instigate a remote process for drafting and signing correspondence during the period of COVID-19 restrictions.

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

Data about intake and performance in answering Hon. Members correspondence are published quarterly with the latest Quarter available at: Customer service operations data: Q4 2021 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) and this includes data up to and including the end of quarter 4 - 2021.