Question to the Leader of the House:

To ask the Leader of the House, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of the performance of the Government in providing answers to (a) correspondence and (b) written parliamentary questions since 4 July 2024.

Parliament has a right to hold Ministers to account. We recognise there is room for improvement upon the record of the previous government, and we are committed to doing things differently. As Leader of the House, I have written to all members of Cabinet to remind Ministers of their responsibilities to provide helpful and timely responses to Members' PQs and correspondence.

This Government has already taken steps to strengthen its approach to correspondence, with a Ministerial champion for correspondence in each department. Data on each Government department's correspondence performance in 2024 will be published on GOV.UK in the usual way (available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/data-on-responses-to-correspondence-from-mps-and-peers).

As a member of the Procedure Committee, the hon. Member will be aware that the Committee monitors individual department’s PQ performance and that it recently launched an inquiry into performance in the 2023–24 Session. I look forward to working with the Committee on this and other matters.

I would encourage hon. Members to raise any specific issues they may have with myself and my office.