Asked by: Edward Argar (Conservative - Melton and Syston)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what proportion of correspondence from hon. Members to her Department was responded to within the required period in each month between July 2024 and August 2025.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
Since July 2024, Treasury ministers have received over 13,000 pieces of correspondence from Members.
Officials and Private Offices are working hard to clear outstanding cases as quickly as possible.
Correspondence performance data is published within HM Treasury’s Annual Report and Accounts.
Asked by: Edward Argar (Conservative - Melton and Syston)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the open caseload was for the Crown Court in England and Wales at the start of each month since June 2024.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Crown Court outstanding caseload remains one of the biggest challenges facing the Criminal Justice System. The caseload has risen substantially over recent years due to the pandemic and a substantial increase in the number of cases coming to court. The latest published data shows that the outstanding caseload stood at 76,957 at the end of March 2025.
For this financial year (25/26), this Government is funding a record allocation of Crown Court sitting days to deliver swifter justice for victims – 110,000 sitting days next year, 4,000 higher than the last Government funded. We also funded 108,500 sitting days in the Crown Court in the last financial year - the highest level in almost 10 years (since FY15/16).
However, the scale of the challenge is beyond what increasing sitting days can achieve. That is why the Government asked Sir Brian Leveson to chair an Independent Review of Criminal Courts, to propose once-in-a-generation reform that will improve timeliness in the courts and deliver swifter justice for victims. The first part of the Review now been published. We will carefully consider Sir Brian’s proposals before setting out the Government’s full response in the autumn.
The number of open Crown Court cases at the end of each quarter is published in Table_C1 of the Criminal Court Statistics quarterly release: Criminal court statistics Q1 2025. Data have been published up to the end of March 2025.
A monthly breakdown, as requested from June 2024 to March 2025 is provided below. We extract data for the end of the month rather than the start of each month, so we have provided month end figures in the table below.
Month | Open Crown Court caseload at the end of the month |
May 2024 | 70,133 |
June 2024 | 70,978 |
July 2024 | 71,419 |
August 2024 | 72,853 |
September 2024 | 73,118 |
October 2024 | 73,641 |
November 2024 | 74,121 |
December 2024 | 74,592 |
January 2025 | 75,299 |
February 2025 | 75,905 |
March 2025 | 76,957 |
Asked by: Edward Argar (Conservative - Melton and Syston)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what proportion of (a) named day (b) ordinary written questions were answered by her Department within the required timescale in (i) January, (ii) February, (iii) March, (iv) April, (v) May, (vi) June, (vii) July and (viii) August 2025.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
Data on response times to written questions is held by the House and published by the Procedure Committee at the end of each session.Asked by: Edward Argar (Conservative - Melton and Syston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to her oral contribution of 4 November 2024, Official Report, col. 46, (a) on what date the leak inquiry commenced, (b) on what date the inquiry concluded and (c) when its findings will be made public.
Answered by Janet Daby
The investigation remains ongoing, and all reasonable lines of inquiry will be pursued.
Asked by: Edward Argar (Conservative - Melton and Syston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of (a) named day questions and (b) ordinary written questions were responded to by his Department within the required timescale in (i) January 2025, (ii) February 2025, (iii) March 2025 and (iv) April 2025.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department takes its obligations to parliamentary accountability seriously, including the answering of written parliamentary questions. We continue to receive the highest number of written questions of any Government department in Whitehall.
The following tables show the information requested as recorded internally within the Department:
Named Day:
Month | Proportion answered within required timescale |
January 2025 | 76.7% |
February 2025 | 47.3% |
March 2025 | 49.6% |
April 2025 | 74.4% |
Ordinary Written:
Month | Proportion answered within required timescale |
January 2025 | 86.4% |
February 2025 | 62.6% |
March 2025 | 63.1% |
April 2025 | 76.3% |
Asked by: Edward Argar (Conservative - Melton and Syston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Urgent Question on the NHS and Care Volunteer Responders service on 19 May 2025, what estimate he has made of when the new national programme will be in operation.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Volunteers continue to support health and care in hospitals, ambulance services, and communities. The new NHS Volunteer recruitment portal is due to fully launch later this year. Prospective volunteers can already access the portal via the volunteer pages of the National Health Service’s website to search for nearby volunteering opportunities and contacts in local NHS organisations.
Although the NHS and Care Volunteer Responders contractual arrangement is ending, volunteers will be signposted to other available opportunities across the sector. The new NHS Volunteer recruitment portal will help to ensure that the active pool of volunteers registered with the Volunteer Responders programme can continue to support the NHS.
Asked by: Edward Argar (Conservative - Melton and Syston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many full time equivalent staff were employed by NHS England on 1 April 2025.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The number of full-time equivalent staff employed by NHS England as of 1 March 2025 was 14,957.12.
Asked by: Edward Argar (Conservative - Melton and Syston)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, with reference to the Prime Minister's oral contribution of 25 February 2025, Official Report, col. 631, (a) on what date the inquiry commenced, (b) on what date it concluded and (c) when its findings will be made public.
Answered by Abena Oppong-Asare
The investigation remains ongoing. I am unable to comment further on the progress or specifics of an ongoing investigation.
Asked by: Edward Argar (Conservative - Melton and Syston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what percentage of NHS England's staff were clinically qualified as of 1 March 2025.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
As of 1 March 2025, 15% of all NHS England staff were registered with a clinical professional body. Examples of clinical professional bodies include the General Medical Council, the General Pharmaceutical Council and the Nursing and Midwifery Council.
Clinical registrations have been used as a proxy to identify clinically qualified staff. There could be clinical qualified staff in NHS England that either do not require registration for their role or they have not recorded it on the electronic staff record.
Asked by: Edward Argar (Conservative - Melton and Syston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Answers of 4 April 2025 to Questions (a) 41903, (b) 41902 and (c) 41906, how many full time equivalent staff are employed in NHSE transformation team; and how many full time equivalent staff it will employ when fully staffed.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Ministers and senior Department officials are working with the new executive team at the top of NHS England, led by Sir Jim Mackey, to determine the leadership, structure, and requirements needed to support the creation of a new centre for health and care.
We will ensure the right expertise and experience is brought together to deliver this transformation, including people with leadership experience of other major change programmes and mergers.