Asked by: Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative - Thirsk and Malton)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 10 October 2025 to Question 69291 on Members: Correspondence, if he will (a) assign the correspondence letter to an incumbent Minister and (b) provide a substantive reply.
Answered by Samantha Dixon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The former Deputy Prime Minister is no longer in post. The questions raised in the hon. Member’s correspondence have already been addressed via parliamentary questions from the hon. Member and his colleagues. I specifically refer the hon. Member to the answers given to Questions UIN 52866 on 27 May 2025, 74185 on 2 September 2025, 84951 on 10 November 2025, 85494 on 5 November 2025, 85495 on 5 November 2025, 88674 on 17 November 2025, and HL10730 on 13 October 2025.
Asked by: Martin Wrigley (Liberal Democrat - Newton Abbot)
Question
To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, when she plans to respond to Question 74810 on Members: Correspondence, tabled on 3 September 2025.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
A response has been issued here.
Asked by: Sureena Brackenridge (Labour - Wolverhampton North East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what representations she has received on changes to minimum income requirements for family visas.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
On the 10th September 2024, the Home Secretary commissioned the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) to review the financial requirements in the Family Immigration Rules.
The MAC has completed a call for evidence which gathered the views of stakeholders and those affected by changes to family rules and saw more than 2,000 responses. The comments received will inform the review being conducted by the MAC.
There have also been representations in the form of parliamentary questions and written correspondence both from members of both houses and members of the public.
On 20 January Members of Parliament took part in a debate regarding the MIR in Westminster Hall.
The findings of the MAC review will be carefully considered by Ministers alongside other representations received.
There will be no changes to the current threshold of £29,000, until the MAC review is complete.
Asked by: Adam Dance (Liberal Democrat - Yeovil)
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 December 2024 to Question 20545 on Department of Health and Social Care: Correspondence, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that 80% of hon. Members receive a response to correspondence in 20 days.
Answered by Andrew Gwynne
The Department is committed to meeting the target of responding to at least 80% of correspondence from Hon. Members within 20 working days. Parliament has a right to hold Ministers to account. We recognise there is room for improvement and we are committed to doing things differently. The Leader of the House of Commons wrote to all Cabinet members in November 2024 to remind Ministers of their responsibilities to provide helpful and timely responses to Members' written parliamentary questions and correspondence.
The Government has already taken steps to strengthen its approach to correspondence, with a Ministerial champion for correspondence identified in each department. As the lead Minister appointed for this Department, I am receiving information from my officials on performance and highlighting the importance of this work in communicating with Hon. Members across both Houses of Parliament.
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Leader of the House:
To ask the Leader of the House, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of the performance of the Government in providing answers to (a) correspondence and (b) written parliamentary questions since 4 July 2024.
Answered by Lucy Powell
Parliament has a right to hold Ministers to account. We recognise there is room for improvement upon the record of the previous government, and we are committed to doing things differently. As Leader of the House, I have written to all members of Cabinet to remind Ministers of their responsibilities to provide helpful and timely responses to Members' PQs and correspondence.
This Government has already taken steps to strengthen its approach to correspondence, with a Ministerial champion for correspondence in each department. Data on each Government department's correspondence performance in 2024 will be published on GOV.UK in the usual way (available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/data-on-responses-to-correspondence-from-mps-and-peers).
As a member of the Procedure Committee, the hon. Member will be aware that the Committee monitors individual department’s PQ performance and that it recently launched an inquiry into performance in the 2023–24 Session. I look forward to working with the Committee on this and other matters.
I would encourage hon. Members to raise any specific issues they may have with myself and my office.
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, 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 Nick Gibb
The Department attaches great importance to the effective and timely handling of correspondence from Members of Parliament, including written parliamentary questions (WPQs). The Department runs tailored training sessions for Departmental colleagues specific to WPQs to improve the quality and timeliness of responses.
All Departments also have access to regular training led by the Parliamentary Capability Team through the Government Campus.
The below table provides the percentage of WPQs answered on time, and the average number of working days to respond, which were received from Members of the House of Commons and due for answer between 1 March 2023 and 31 August 2023.
Total WPQs answered | % WPQs answered on time | Average working days to respond |
1,576 | 86.3% | 6.1 |
Footnotes:
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps their Department is taking to improve response times to written parliamentary questions.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department attaches great importance to the effective and timely handling of correspondence from Members of Parliament, including written parliamentary questions (WPQs). The Department runs tailored training sessions for Departmental colleagues specific to WPQs to improve the quality and timeliness of responses.
All Departments also have access to regular training led by the Parliamentary Capability Team through the Government Campus.
The below table provides the percentage of WPQs answered on time, and the average number of working days to respond, which were received from Members of the House of Commons and due for answer between 1 March 2023 and 31 August 2023.
Total WPQs answered | % WPQs answered on time | Average working days to respond |
1,576 | 86.3% | 6.1 |
Footnotes:
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Leader of the House:
To ask the Leader of the House, what steps she is taking to help ensure that Members' requests for assistance on ministerial correspondence are addressed in a timely manner.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt
Parliament has a right to hold Ministers to account and, as Leader of the House, I expect Government Ministers to respond quickly and effectively to Members’ correspondence. I will continue to drive that message and I encourage members who get an unsatisfactory response to write to me and I will take this up for any Member who does not get a proper response.
I recognise that my office and I have a role to play in making representations to Government on behalf of the House of Commons, and have taken a number of actions:
The Parliamentary Capability Team in the Cabinet Office also provides training on managing parliamentary work to civil servants of all departments and grades, including blended learning courses on ministerial correspondence and tailored workshops for Senior Civil Servants. Since April 2022, 1,160 civil servants from across government have attended training provided by the Parliamentary Capability Team on managing Ministerial Correspondence and Written Parliamentary Questions.
As per the Cabinet Office’s Guide to Handling Correspondence (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/handling-government-correspondence-guidance), departments and agencies should aim to respond to correspondence within a 20-working day target deadline. The Cabinet Office published data on this for 2022 for all government departments on GOV.UK in March 2023, and will be publishing data for Q1 and Q2 2023 shortly. The 2022 data can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/data-on-responses-to-correspondence-from-mps-and-peers-2022.
Asked by: Rosie Duffield (Independent - Canterbury)
Question to the Leader of the House:
To ask the Leader of the House, what discussions she has had with Cabinet colleagues on ensuring that their Departments meet deadlines for replying to Members’ correspondence.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt
Parliament has a right to hold Ministers to account and, as Leader of the House, I expect Government Ministers to respond quickly and effectively to Members’ correspondence. I will continue to drive that message and I encourage members who get an unsatisfactory response to write to me and I will take this up for any Member who does not get a proper response.
I recognise that my office and I have a role to play in making representations to Government on behalf of the House of Commons, and have taken a number of actions:
The Parliamentary Capability Team in the Cabinet Office also provides training on managing parliamentary work to civil servants of all departments and grades, including blended learning courses on ministerial correspondence and tailored workshops for Senior Civil Servants. Since April 2022, 686 civil servants from across government have attended training provided by the Parliamentary Capability Team on managing Ministerial Correspondence and Written Parliamentary Questions.
In addition, the Cabinet Office Guide to Handling Correspondence, which is available on Gov.uk, includes guidance for civil servants on how to handle correspondence from MPs, Peers, members of the devolved legislatures and members of the public (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/handling-government-correspondence-guidance).
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what proportion of (a) ordinary and (b) named-day written questions their Department answered on time in 2022.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department attaches great importance to the effective and timely handling of correspondence from Members of Parliament, including written parliamentary questions. The below table provides the proportion of (a) ordinary and (b) named day written parliamentary questions answered by the Department in 2022.
PQ type | Answered | Answered on time |
PQ-Ordinary | 2,649 | 2131 (77%) |
PQ-Named | 1,217 | 939 (80%) |
Total | 3,866 | 3,070 (79%) |