Business of the House

Gordon Marsden Excerpts

Thursday 10th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

There is. I can encourage my right hon. and hon. Friends at the Department for Transport to respond to the point that my hon. Friend has made so persuasively on behalf of her constituents.

[Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

Like many Members, I have had the melancholy experience of writing to officials at the Department for Work and Pensions, in this case about a personal independence payment centre in Blackpool, waiting two months for a reply and then finding that the answer has been outsourced to Atos. May we have a debate on the responsibility of Departments to ensure that when Members write to their officials, the answers are not outsourced to organisations that have been judged to be failing?

[Mr Lansley]

If the hon. Gentleman is able to give me the details, I will look into the precise circumstances of his correspondence. My practice as a Member of Parliament, when I believe that there is a ministerial responsibility, is to write to Ministers about issues. I do not always get a reply, but I hope to get one. That tends to ensure that the responsibility for the reply is not diverted elsewhere.