To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the target time is for her Department to respond to queries from hon. Members; and how many queries are awaiting a response as on 2 September 2022.

The department works to a target of responding to 95% of Hon. Members’ written correspondence within 20 working days.

Performance against target has been impacted by an unprecedented increase in MP’s queries following the Afghan evacuation, Ukraine crisis and HMPO application surge.

The department has launched a recovery plan which will lead to incremental improvements in service standards over the coming 5 months with a return to the 20 day service standard.

Data about intake and performance in answering Hon. Members’ correspondence are published quarterly with the latest quarter available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/customer-service-operations-data-q1-2022.