Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to increase the proportion of written parliamentary questions which receive answers within the usual time period.

The Department takes seriously its parliamentary obligations. I am grateful to my colleagues for their patience as we respond to a very high number of written parliamentary questions (PQs).

The Department of Health and Social Care is the busiest Department in Whitehall in terms of the volume of PQs that we receive, routinely receiving in excess of 1,400 PQs each month. In the most recent period for which the Table Office has provided data on PQ performance, from 24 March to 30 June 2025, the Department of Health and Social Care received nearly double the number of PQs as the next highest volume departments, and received 15% of all PQs tabled across Whitehall.

We are taking action to improve PQ performance. This includes enhancing the data available to policy teams on outstanding casework and ensuring that the joint leadership of the Department is championing the importance of PQs.