§ Mr. Gareth WardellTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will publish for the last year the average time his Department takes to reply to letters from right hon. and hon. Members.
§ Mr. GoodladI refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer which my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster gave the hon. Member for Cambridgeshire, South-East (Mr. Paice) on 3 July 1992 at column771.
The FCO has a target response time of 10 working days for all ministerial correspondence with right hon. and hon. Members. A longer response time may be necessary if there is a heavy volume of correspondence on issues of wide parliamentary and public concern.
Figures for 1992 will appear in the FCO's next annual report, early in 1993. These will show the number of letters received in the course of the year, the number of replies despatched within the target time and the percentage of the total this represents.