YORK Central MP Rachael Maskell says she can wait months to get an answer when questioning various government departments.

The Labour MP quizzed Paymaster General Michael Ellis MP about the issue on Thursday.

He told the Commons officials were committed to providing ‘t’he highest levels of service’ and Cabinet Office timeliness has improved each quarter since the government started publishing such data in 2021.

The minister added 89 per cent of letters received from MPs in Quarter 4 were “responded to within 20 days.”

But Ms Maskell hit back: “To get a response: the Equalities Minister, four months; the Health Minister, often four months but can be six months; and the Defence Minister, seven months, with our staff chasing and chasing, while being on the phone for three hours, or up to five hours to UK Visas and Immigration.

“Behind every letter and every call our office makes is someone in need—often pressing need. We all know that this is due to capacity, so how can the Government state that they plan to cut 20% of civil servant jobs, 91,000 people, when they cannot even cope with undertaking the most basic of tasks?”

Mr Ellis then coimmented: "I recognise the importance of the correspondence for those constituents who write in. It might be instructive to know that Departments have continued to receive a significantly higher volume of correspondence in 2021, mainly due to the pandemic, and that has had an impact on resource and timeliness of responses.

"During 2021, most Departments continued to receive a significantly higher volume of correspondence. The Department for Transport was able to answer 92% of 13,363 letters, the Ministry of Defence 88% of 3,773 letters, and the Department for International Trade 84% of 2,182 letters, within 20 days."