Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department has issued guidance to staff on the timeframe in which they should respond to MP enquiries.

The Department treats enquiries from Members of Parliament as a high priority and has issued clear guidance to staff members.

We are committed to improving response times and have taken a number of steps, such as deploying additional resource, to improve the timeliness of responses to MP enquiries. The Department has also published guidance on the W4MP website to ensure MP offices have clear visibility of appropriate contact numbers for each DWP benefit product line.

Data on responses to correspondence from MPs is regularly published and can be found here: Data on responses to correspondence from MPs and peers - GOV.UK