§ Mr. LidingtonTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what target he has set for his Department to reply to letters from hon. Members about immigration, nationality and asylum cases; in how many cases his Department has met that target in the last year; and if he will make a statement. [117652]
§ Mrs. RocheI refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave him on 25 October 1999,Official Report, column 687W and to the reply given to him by my hon. Friend, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State on 26 July 1999, Official Report, columns 63–64W.
The Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND) has a target of 15 working days for replying to letters from hon. Members. This includes correspondence addressed to Ministers and to the Secretary to the IND Board. I regret that, due to current updating of the Information Technology used to record and track the correspondence addressed to the Secretary to the IND Board, I am unable to give a figure for the number of cases that met the target during last year. As soon as it becomes available I will ensure that it is passed to the hon. Member. For the period 1 April 1999 to 31 March 2000, replies to letters 440W addressed to Ministers met the target in 9.7 per cent. of cases. Every effort is being made to improve on this figure.
§ Mr. LidingtonTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the earliest date of a letter from an hon. Member which has yet to be dealt with by the Immigration and Nationality Directorate's ministerial case-handling team. [117651]
§ Mrs. RocheThe Immigration and Nationality Directorate's Ministerial Correspondence Unit is currently dealing with letters from hon. Members received in December, the earliest being 17 December. We are aware, however, that there are some older cases within the system elsewhere in the Integrated Casework Directorate and our aim is to clear this backlog within the next few months.