Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether there is guidance indicating the period within which ministers must answer correspondence from Members of Parliament and Peers; and if so, within what period of time they advise that ministers should provide such answers.

The Cabinet Office issues guidance to all Government departments on the handling of correspondence from Members of Parliament, Members of the House of Lords, MEPs and Members of Devolved Administrations. The most recent edition was issued in March 2016 and is publicly available on Gov.uk.

All departments should set targets for replying to correspondence from MPs and Peers. These targets (which may be different to the targets set for other types of correspondence) will be published in the annual correspondence report coordinated by the Cabinet Office. Individual departments' targets for routine correspondence from MPs should be a maximum of 20 working days, and the Cabinet Office encourages departments to consider setting themselves more challenging targets. When calculating the target date for reply, the clock should start the day after the correspondence was received.