Question

To ask the Leader of the House, further to the Written Answer by Lord True on 19 June (HL8246), what explanations he has had from the Department of Health and Social Care concerning the number of questions allocated to that department that remain unanswered after 10 working days.

As Leader of the House of Lords I have reiterated to all Front Bench Ministers the importance of adhering to the 10 day target for responses to questions for written answer. As stated in my response on 19 June (HL8246) the Department for Health and Social Care faced significant disruption to the delivery of parliamentary support due to the pressures they faced during the Covid-19 pandemic. They have since implemented a Written Parliamentary Question Recovery Plan to deal with the backlog of written questions. At the time of writing, DHSC’s PQ on-time rate for July is 89.6%, the highest percentage during a sitting month since early 2020.

The Permanent Secretary has further reassured me that they are committed to improving the process and have taken further steps to bring performance levels back to pre-pandemic levels including streamlining the drafting process. I will be looking for further improvements on their record as a result of the Department's Recovery plan. It is important that the highest standards are achieved by all Departments in replying to members of the House.