Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of enquiries from hon. Members to her Department received a response within 20 working days since 1 January 2022; and how many and what proportion of enquiries awaiting a response were received more than (i) 20, (ii) 40, (iii) 60 and (iv) 80 working days ago as of 20 June 2022.

Performance against target has been impacted by a significant increase in the volume of correspondence received, including the unprecedented amount of correspondence about the situation in Afghanistan and more recently in Ukraine.

The Department continues to prioritise enquiries related to Ukraine and recognises it has not been able to meet service standard in other cases. Actions have been taken to clear backlogs and drive-up performance. MPs can escalate urgent and compassionate cases via the team at Portcullis House.

The Department continues to recruit additional resources and has recently been loaned staff from non-operational areas to assist in clearing the backlogs.

Data about intake and performance in answering Hon. Members correspondence are published quarterly with the latest Quarter available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/customer-service-operations-data-q1-2022