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The answer-time league

How long each government department takes to answer a written parliamentary question: the median and the 90th percentile, in calendar days from tabling to answer, with the share answered by the expected date Parliament recorded for the question. Ranked by median, fastest first.

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Methodology

The league covers written questions whose answer entered the record in the 90 days up to the record-complete date shown above. Days are calendar days from the tabled date to the answered date, both as recorded by Parliament’s Written Questions system; recess days therefore count, which is visible in every department’s tail. “By expected date” is the share of answers published on or before the expected answer date Parliament recorded for the question (the named day where one was set). Departments with fewer than 50 answers in the window are not ranked; a median over a handful of questions is noise.

Two honest limits. First, this measures only questions that have been answered: questions still awaiting an answer are on the unanswered board and are absent here, so a department cannot improve its median by leaving hard questions unanswered without it showing there. Second, the window is a rolling 90 days rather than the full parliamentary session: our copy of the record carries answer dates from late March 2026 onward (older answers were captured without their dates), so a session-long league is not yet honestly computable, and we would rather not render one than guess.

Free to quote with attribution to “Emily Politics” and a link to this page. Every figure is a real database measurement over the official record, taken on the date shown; nothing is estimated.