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Timeliness in responses to Written Parliamentary Questions improves in 2023–24

14 January 2025

The House of Commons Procedure Committee has today published its report on timeliness of responses to Written Parliamentary Questions (WPQs) in the last Parliamentary Session (2023-24).

Answering performance in the 2023–24 Session rose to the highest level since before the pandemic, with the 85% standard having been exceeded for both Ordinary and Named Day responses for the first time since the 2017–19 Session.

However, this improvement coincided with a marked decrease in the number of questions being tabled per sitting day. The average number of written questions tabled across all answering bodies per sitting day during the 2023–24 Session was 274, down from 346 per day in the 2022–23 Session: a 21% decrease.

Cat Smith MP, Chair of the Procedure Committee, said:

“It is encouraging to see the response rate to WPQs improving in the last parliamentary session, as it shows that government departments recognise the importance of transparency and scrutiny by Parliament. We also welcome the new government’s commitment to maintaining high answering performance.

We will continue to monitor the performance of all departments closely, and there are some departments where we expect to see a marked improvement in the present session compared with the previous one. However, ensuring the timeliness of responses should not come at the expense of detail, and the Committee will continue to monitor response performance for WPQs with a particular focus on the quality of responses throughout this Parliament.”

The report also notes that:

  • Many of the departments highlighted for poor performance by the predecessor committee made positive progress during the 2023–24 Session, and the Committee hopes to see continued improvements to the timeliness of responses to Named Day questions from the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Social Care, which are still below the cross-government 85% standard.
  • The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs' (Defra's) answering performance fell further from their performance in 2022-23. The Chair wrote to the Secretary of State to raise concerns, and welcomes his acknowledgment that such performance is unacceptable and notes the steps he has taken to improve this.

Read the full report on the website.

Further information

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