HC Deb 15 December 1977 vol 941 cc899-900
13. Mr. George Rodgers

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps he is taking to expedite replies to hon Members of Parliament who have submitted correspondence to his Department.

Mr. Merlyn Rees

The arrangements for handling hon. Members' correspondence are kept under review and some procedural changes were introduced earlier this year following a special survey. Every effort is made to reply as quickly as possible, but many letters require detailed inquiries outside the Department and delay is sometimes inevitable.

Mr. Rodgers

I appreciate the vast volume of correspondence directed towards my right hon. Friend's Department, but is he aware that the simple fact is that Back-Bench Members frequently have to wait several months for a reply to a straightforward query? In this circumstance, will he press for additional staff to be recruited, or consider pressing the Prime Minister for a transfer of some of his responsibilities to another Department?

Mr. Rees

The last point is not applicable because wherever it goes the query has to be dealt with. I have considered this very carefully. What arises with most correspondence to the Home Office is that it has to be sent out to a local police force or to a prison. It is not just dealt with in the Department. There are legal considerations. Indeed, I dare not express a view on one matter about which my hon. Friend has been corresponding with me until certain inquiries are made, and in most cases that is what is involved. It is implicit, from the nature of the letters that we get in the Home Office, that we have to be extremely careful, because we may end up being quoted in courts and we must not reply hastily or in slipshod fashion.

Mr. Costain

We know the Home Secretary's difficulties in replying to letters, but will he give us a reasonable estimate of when an hon. Member may expect a reply to a letter? For instance, I have written a letter to his Department saying that an answer given in the House was highly inaccurate. Surely that is a matter which should be corrected at an early stage. When may I expect a reply to that letter?

Mr. Rees

Without looking at that I cannot give an answer, but I am concerned about this. We have had an O and M study of the matter. Apart from extra staff, it is implicit in the nature of the stuff that comes to the Home Office that great care has to be taken over the reply. I apologise if there has been the sort of slip-up to which the hon. Gentleman referred.