Written Parliamentary Questions Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab) 2. What recent assessment he has made of Government Departments’ performance in answering written parliamentary questions on time. The Deputy Leader of the House of Commons (Tom Brake) My office collates departmental performance information for ordinary and named day parliamentary questions for each Session, which are submitted to the Procedure Committee. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House provided data relating to the last Session to that Committee in July 2013, and those data are available on the parliamentary website. Nic Dakin In January, the Procedure Committee published a report which demonstrated that five Departments are deteriorating in their performance of answering named day questions. What is the Deputy Leader of the House doing about that? Tom Brake I thank the hon. Gentleman for that question. Clearly, the Government want to ensure that best practice is spread to ensure that all Departments are performing at a very high level. If five Departments are deteriorating, a greater number are improving, and we know that even big Departments such as the Department of Health are able to achieve a fantastic score of responding to 99% of ordinary questions within an appropriate time. Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con) Which is the best performing Department, which is the worst performing, and would the Deputy Leader of the House consider drawing the attention of the Prime Minister to the worst performing Department on a quarterly basis? Tom Brake Indeed, I am happy to draw the Prime Minister’s attention to Departments that are not up to scratch. It may impress the hon. Gentleman if I tell him that the Department for the Leader of the House of Commons performs the best.