Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of hon. Members' queries to UK Visas and Immigration services are responded to within their target time of 20 working days.

The Department works to a target of responding to 95% of MPs written correspondence within 20 working days. Performance has been impacted by a very significant increase in the volume of correspondence received, alongside the need for Ministers and officials to instigate a remote process for drafting and signing correspondence during the period of COVID-19 restrictions.

The Department recognises it has not been able to meet service standard in some cases but has implemented an action plan to clear backlogs and drive up performance.

Data about intake and performance in answering MP Correspondence are published quarterly and this includes data up to and including the end of quarter 2 – 2021. This can be found at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/customer-service-operations-data-q2-2021