Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when she plans to provide an Answer to Question 17965 tabled by the hon. Member for Stockport on 11 March 2024.

Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to Question 17965 on 21 March 2024.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when she plans to provide a substantive answer to Question 16155 on Blood: Contamination, tabled on 28 February 2024 by the Hon. Member for Glenrothes.

Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)

I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to Question 16155 on 18 March 2024.

Question

To ask the Leader of the House why Written Questions HL660 and HL661, tabled on 28 November, have not been answered after 10 working days.

Answered by Lord True - Leader of the House of Lords and Lord Privy Seal

As Leader of the House of Lords I have reiterated to all Departments the importance of adhering to the 10 day target for responses to questions for written answer. My office has been in close contact with the Department for Health and Social Care’s Parliamentary Team to ascertain why HL660 and HL661 went unanswered. They have now confirmed that they have been answered. The Permanent Secretary has previously reassured me that the department is working to return performance to pre-pandemic levels. As this issue has persisted I am writing again to the Permanent Secretary to highlight the lack of improvement.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many times his Department answered Named Day written parliamentary questions stating that it would not be possible to answer a question within the usual time period, in the last 12 months.

Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Department provides a holding reply as a courtesy to hon. Members if a Named Day written parliamentary question is not expected to be answered on the named date. In the period 1 November 2022 to 31 October 2023, the Department received a total of 2,980 Named Day questions, out of which we issued 1,115 holding replies of the nature specified by the hon. Member.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what data their Department holds on the average response time to written parliamentary questions in the last six months; and what assessment they have made of the adequacy of that response time.

Answered by Will Quince

The Department has answered 4,509 written parliamentary questions from both the House of Commons and the House of Lords in the six-month period covering 1 March 2023 to 31 August 2023. Out of that number, the Department answered 3,555 within the required timeframes.

The Department has been embarking on an internal recovery programme to improve PQ performance, and in the most recent sitting month, July 2023, the Department achieved an on-time answering rate of 90.4%, exceeding our target set by Parliament.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps their Department is taking to improve response times to written parliamentary questions.

Answered by Will Quince

The Department has answered 4,509 written parliamentary questions from both the House of Commons and the House of Lords in the six-month period covering 1 March 2023 to 31 August 2023. Out of that number, the Department answered 3,555 within the required timeframes.

The Department has been embarking on an internal recovery programme to improve PQ performance, and in the most recent sitting month, July 2023, the Department achieved an on-time answering rate of 90.4%, exceeding our target set by Parliament.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 19 July 2023 to Question 193672 on Department of Health and Social Care: Contracts, what estimate he has made of the cost of providing an answer to that Question.

Answered by Will Quince

In relation to Question 193672, there were 405 contracts which were active with a value of over £1 million on the Department’s central procurement and contract management database over the last five years. To provide an answer on whether “the goods and services contracted for have not been received and are no longer expected to be received in the last five years” we would have to consult all the individual contract managers for these contracts to obtain this type of information, which would then have to be properly collated and validated.

The contract manager would need to liaise with colleagues in the Department’s Finance directorate to find the relevant purchase orders to link spend to associated contracts and then make an assessment on whether goods and services were no longer expected to be received. We estimate that this would take a minimum of two hours per contract; multiplied by the number of contracts (405) this would total 810 hours. At a cost of £25 per hour this would equate to £20,250, which exceeds the disproportionate cost threshold of £850.

Presently, the Department has 249 contracts over £1 million which were active in the last 12 months. In a similar fashion to the above, the information requested for these contracts regarding goods and services not being received or not expected to be received is not held centrally and can only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

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.

Answered by Lord True - Leader of the House of Lords and Lord Privy Seal

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.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when he plans to answer Question 182258, tabled by the hon. Member for Shipley on 24 April 2023.

Answered by Will Quince

I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 14 June 2023 to Question 182258.

Question

To ask the Leader of the House what explanations he has had from the Department for Health and Social Care concerning their failure to answer 18 questions for written answer, dating back to 19 April, within the recommended time.

Answered by Lord True - Leader of the House of Lords and Lord Privy Seal

As Leader of the House I see it as essential that Noble Lords receive accurate and timely responses to all written questions tabled to His Majesty's Government. For that reason, I have spoken to all Front Bench Ministers regarding the importance of adhering to the 10 working day window for response to questions for written answer. I have also written to the Permanent Secretary of DHSC to reiterate the importance of his department responding to peers within this timeframe, as well as urging them to clear the backlog as soon as possible.

My office has contacted DHSC regarding their repeated failure to meet the 10 day target for response. After the significant disruption caused to the delivery of parliamentary support to the House of Lords by the COVID-19 pandemic, the DHSC parliamentary team has implemented a Written Parliamentary Question Recovery Plan to deal with the backlog of written questions. This recovery plan has led to significant improvements in their performance. However, your question clearly highlights that there is more work to do to ensure that all questions are answered within the 10 day target. Parliament rightly expects that more work will be done on this matter.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when he plans to respond to Question 110889 of 14 December 2022 on Community Diagnostic Centres.

Answered by Will Quince

I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 17 April 2023 to Question 110889.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when he plans to answer Question 148814 from the hon. Member for Stockport which was tabled on 20 February 2023.

Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 24 March 2023 to Question 148814.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when he plans to respond to Question 158772 tabled by the Rt hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green on 06 March 2023 on Hikvision Cameras.

Answered by Will Quince

I refer the Rt. hon. Member to the answer I gave on 21 March 2023 to Question 158772.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when he plans to answer Question 148573, tabled by the hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury on 20 February 2022.

Answered by Will Quince

I refer the Rt hon. Member to the answer I gave on 14 March 2023 to Question 148573.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when his Department will respond to Question 137846 tabled on 1 February 2023 by the hon. Member for Ilford North.

Answered by Will Quince

I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 7 February 2023 to Question 137846.