§ Mr. WigginTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs when she will reply to the letter dated 3 December 2001 from the hon. Member for Leominster on behalf of constituents Mr. and Mrs. Pledge about liquid petroleum gas. [48975]
§ Mr. Morley[holding answer 15 April 2002]: I am sorry for the long delay in replying. You will be aware of the difficulties DEFRA faced last year in processing correspondence, following the Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak, and the creation of the new Department. Steady progress is being made towards eliminating the backlog of cases, and performance on incoming letters was considerably improved. I can assure you that all efforts will continue to be devoted to this area until the problems have been fully resolved.
Your constituents letter raises issues on the use of liquid petroleum gas, which is a matter for the Department of Trade and Industry. The correspondence was sent to the DTI on 25 April, for them to reply direct.
§ Mr. SalmondTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs when the Parliamentary Secretary intends to reply to the letter dated 25 January from the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan regarding the monitoring of quota uptake. [50071]
§ Mr. Morley[holding answer 17 April 2002]: I am sorry for the delay in reply to the hon. Member's letter. A reply was sent on 18 April.
§ Mr. LawsTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many letters received by her Department since June 2001 received a substantive response in(a) less than four weeks, (b) between four and six weeks, (c) between six weeks and two months and (d) over two months; and if she will make a statement. [51468]
49W
§ Mr. MorleyThe Department suffered severe disruption last year due to allocating top priority to defeating the Foot and Mouth epidemic. Furthermore the sheer volume of correspondence following the creation of DEFRA had a major impact on the Department's performance, resulting in a large backlog of letters. Mechanisms are now in place to prevent any further recurrence of the problems experienced, and a range of work is in hand to tighten both quality and the speed of our response to Member's letters. The events of last year were exceptional, and their impact is still being felt across a range of Departmental activity.
Letters answered from 8 June 2001 to 18 April 2002 Number of letters which received a response In less than four weeks 2,689 Between four and six weeks 1,078 Between six weeks and two months 1,086 Over two months 2,471