Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40-52)
MR GRAHAM
ALLEN, MP, MR
NORMAN BAKER,
MP, MR ANDREW
BENNETT, MP, MR
TIM BOSWELL,
MP AND MS
OONA KING,
MP
TUESDAY 12 FEBRUARY 2002
Ms Munn
40. One of the things I find very frustrating
about written questions and one of the reasons I would want to
limit them is because of the amount of questions which are asked
about information that is readily available elsewhere. I understood
that they did not have to respond if that was the case. What would
you do to stop Members doing that because it is just stupid?
(Norman Baker) I certainly think that happens on occasion
and there needs to be (I do not know how it can be done) a better
database so that Members can either be encouraged to use it themselves
or as a backstop the Table Office would recognise it. I do not
know how practical that is but that is probably the backstop point
where it should happen. Can I say on the issue of the number of
questions, first of all, I do not think they are a virility symbol,
that is an absurd way of looking at it. The fact of the matter
and my assessment of the matter is that the number of questions
which are being blocked, not by the Table Office I mean, but by
Ministers when they give spurious answers, is on the increase—for
reasons of commercial confidentiality, for reasons of alleged
cost, because of internal cost, because they have invented new
ways of doing things. For example, we used to be able to ask Ministers
regularly about individual travel arrangements; now they publish
a report once a year and will not answer anything until that report
comes out. Part of the reason so many questions are asked is because
Ministers do not answer them and part of the answer to this problem
is ensuring that Ministers do answer questions. Supplementaries
are required in order to force information out which should have
been provided first time round.
(Andrew Bennett) We have got to remember that the
whole process ought to change whenever we get the Freedom of Information
legislation implemented, so we ought to be able to get a lot more
information. One of the things you ought to look at, and I do
not know whether you are going to do so, is the people who prepare
the answers, and they should come before you. I had a very odd
experience when I was doing the frontbench job on education for
the Labour Party in that quite often you put down a question and
got a very unsatisfactory answer and the rule was supposed to
be that if you were an Opposition spokesman, the people answering
the questions tried to help at least in providing statistical
information. Very often it was because you had made a mess of
asking the question. I argued then that it would be very helpful
if you could ring up the person who was likely to answer the question,
usually in the Statistical Department, and discussed it. If you
framed it in a particular way he could give you a useful answer
which you could use politically and if you framed it it in a different
way it was going to be very very difficult for him to answer without
going to a lot of expense. For a very brief period of about two
months I was allowed to talk to the individual who was answering
the questions and then somebody else moved into that particular
place and it was stopped. I think there should be much more opportunity
for you to talk to the people who are going to answer the question
and in many cases if you can talk to them you can hone the question
in a much more effective way than if you go in and talk to the
Clerks about it, who sometimes do do that process but only very
occasionally. I think there should be much more dialogue between
the people who are going to advise the Minister or answer the
question and the questioners, in some areas.
(Mr Boswell) Coming back on that, my experience in
shadowing four government departments since 1997 is that there
is a wide variation of practice within Parliamentary Clerks and
those who prepare the answers to questions, and they are more
or less helpful. I agree with Mr Bennett that it is beneficial
to the process if they set out to be helpful. The only other caveat
I wanted to enter is that I am leery about any statutory restrictions
on the number of written questions. I think this probably has
to be resolved as a matter the culture. There will be variations
between individuals' assiduity and the way in which they frame
questions and so forth. Sometimes they are a waste of time, if
we are honest, but on the whole I think it is better for people
to be able to get their questions out than to run the risk of
being able to claim they have been victimised by the Executive
let alone by the Speaker because they have been prohibited from
questioning the Executive. So, on balance, the status quo
in that respect.
Mr Joyce
41. If I could say one thing and then ask a
question about planted questions. On the virility symbol, it may
be that you have not seen what goes on in Scotland, but I will
tell you now the Scottish press run league tables and if Andrew
Bennett did not ask many questions he would find himself on the
front page of the tabloids saying "is this man the laziest
MP in England?" and he would soon start asking questions.
It is a virility symbol in Scotland and I suspect it may become
that in England. If you do not like planted questions, and this
applies to everyone because pretty much everybody said it, what
can you do about it or is it just a virility symbol making a statement?
(Andrew Bennett) There is no reason why you could
not tell the press to get lost and to make it quite clear why
you are telling them to get lost. I would have thought as soon
as one or two Scottish Members actually had the courage to tell
them they were making a stupid league table and started publishing
the cost — There are one or two people who do cost the taxpayer
a huge amount of money with the number of questions. I would have
thought if you had side-by-side the number of questions and the
cost, then public opinion might favour the people who ask a reasonable
number of questions at a moderate cost.
(Mr Allen) I have to admit I was the Norman Baker
of my day —
Ms Munn
42. I was going to point that out, Graham, but
I refrained!
(Mr Allen) In my second or third year in the House
I was the most prolific questioner. That was partly because it
was a way of tying up the Government by asking loads and loads
of questions and also as a way of improving my general knowledge
by finding out lots of things. I did not have the relationship
and rapport with Ministers. I was a new Member and an Opposition
Member and that is the best way to get answers from people and
then follow it up with a letter. That is why I have come to the
conclusion that, not least because of the things that Eric has
mentioned, the press are on the look out for more and more ways
of measuring Members of Parliament and this is one way to do it.
If you have the four it allows you to not get involved in that
league table and that bidding process. I have got to come back
again to talk about the researchers. Some Members, who are totally
disinterested in particular areas, produce the most questions
in that area because the researchers feel obliged to pump out
to show their boss that they are working by this sheaf of questions
they can wave around as they go into the Tea Room.
Chairman
43. Are you saying therefore, Mr Allen, that
the more the office cost allowance has been increased, the more
questions are being tabled because people can afford to employ
a researcher or research assistant?
(Mr Allen) It is easier to abuse the system if you
have got help but you can abuse it as an individual and one of
the ways to make sure it is used sensibly is to limit the number
of questions and make the currency more valuable so that your
local press will be waiting for the answers to your four key questions.
Looking at my colleague Mr Baker who, as I said, is a prolific
questioner but a very pointed questioner, it is perfectly possible
with 50 Liberal MPs to ask at least as many questions as Mr Baker
has been asking on the key areas and also that broadens the campaign
out if you get colleagues to help focus on a particular issue.
It will avoid this scandalous abuse that is currently taking place
of what should be a very valuable weapon.
(Andrew Bennett) I do not think the problem is the
individual Members' researchers. I do not think there is such
a group but let us assume there is an All-Party Shoelace Lobbying
Group. They set themselves up as an all-party group, they get
an adviser to assist them, paid for by somebody, and that individual
then has to impress whoever is paying them that they are doing
a good job. They are the ones that work their way round and persuade
Members of Parliament to put questions in. If you are pointing
the finger at people who put too many questions in, it is quite
a few of the people who help set up some of these all-party groups
who are particularly to blame.
Chairman: Mr Rendel, who because of very important
business earlier was not able to turn up at the beginning, has
been very, very disciplined in not intervening, but I know he
wants to put one or two questions.
Mr Rendel
44. I apologise that I was not here earlier
and I hope I do not ask anything that has been asked earlier.
Can I say in answer to Graham Allen, who was talking about briefing
Ministers, there was a lovely occasion on which the briefing of
Ministers was entirely wasted in my case when the whole briefing
was leaked to me in advance and I was able to ask a supplementary
question on which the Minister had not been briefed—very
useful. It does not happen very often. The question I really wanted
to ask about was oral questions. Very often I suspect people put
in an initial oral question which is simply aimed at getting on
to the subject you want to get on to so you can then ask a supplementary
which is what you really wanted to ask. We would waste less time
and perhaps be just as effective if instead of putting into the
ballot an oral question we put into the ballot the subject. So
for example on DETR you could say "train delays" or
for health you could say "waiting lists" and leave it
at that. Everybody would know roughly what your subject was. It
could be 48 hours in advance, as has been suggested, but Ministers
would then be forced to be properly briefed and you could complain
if they were not. Other people would have a chance to know what
subjects were coming up and therefore what supplementaries they
might want to ask. You would have a chance possibly even to ask
two questions, the first question in effect a supplementary on
your subject and a further supplementary to ask as well. That
would be much more useful instead of having to put down what is
effectively a wasted first question.
(Norman Baker) Good idea.
(Mr Allen) Having been a Government Whip, one of the
things that Ministers discuss at their weekly meetings is who
is going to answer what question. My way around this difficulty
of proposing an open question would have been that the questioner
specifies the Minister because the Minister has a given brief
which is in the public domain. Having listened to this debate
and come here with an open mind, I think Mr Rendel's proposal
to have a topic rather than a Minister is actually the more sensible.
(Norman Baker) I agree.
(Andrew Bennett) I have a slight reservation. What
happens if I put in a word like "regulation"; does that
count as a topic or is that more specific? Is it the Clerk's job
to decide whether something is specific or is it entirely up to
the Member to decide how specific they make their question?
Chairman
45. That is a matter we will have to look into
and seek to find out the answer but I cannot give it to you from
the chair. Oona?
(Ms King) Broadly speaking, what you have proposed
is a compromise between the areas we are looking for
(Mr Boswell) I, too, am attracted. For fullness, I
should make the point that as far as I know very few people table
formal questions to the Prime Minister about his engagements on
the day. It appears as a large "E" on the questions
I table and that is accepted by the Table Office. We know it is
an open question. I think there may be some difficulties but basically
it is manageable. The only other comment I would make is it ought
to be able to be open to Members to ask a question which relates
to an over-arching concern they have about administrative problems
or regulations, as my colleagues have said, which does not fit
narrowly within the ministerial department. I think one should
also make the point that Ministers in divvying up questions between
themselves do try wherever possible to involve all the ministerial
team or shadow ministerial team and sometimes that is not easy
but you have to have a bit of vireing in order to make a reasonable
presentation.
David Hamilton
46. Could I make an observation before I ask
a question. I have enjoyed this debate today. It is one of the
most interesting debates I have taken part in because of the number
of ideas that have come across. As one of the new members, you
would not invent a place like this if you started from scratch
and I have spent the last several months going from one place
to another, not understanding what it is about, burning the midnight
oil trying to work out it by the following day just to find out
I was wrong in my assumption and therefore my conclusions are
wrong. This is something that has been very worthwhile today and
the number of answers that have come up has been very helpful.
Again think back to the time when you first came here, how many
Members do you think coming here understand the distinction between
an ordinary written question and any other type of question put
forward? One question I would like to ask is how you reprimand
somebody. On several occasions you have said that if a Minister
does not answer the question properly you go back to that Minister
and action should be taken so he must answer the substantive question
on that day. If he or she does not, what action are you going
to take in relation to that? I suspect you will come back to the
Speaker again but the Speaker by this time will be three feet
under with the number of pressures put on him.
(Mr Allen) I suspect if the Speaker makes one or two
examples and makes it very clear that the House is behind the
Speaker in what he is doing, on only one or two occasions would
it be necessary. In terms of the distinction between oral and
written questions, I believe that the induction and training has
improved somewhat since I was a new Member but I think it is still
not good enough. I went to the induction training for new Members
this time round because I was a new backbencher. The last time
I was a backbencher was 1989 so I had to relearn and I found it
very difficult in certain areas to pick these things up, and I
think perhaps the House authorities should look at a more comprehensive
package and also in-service training for Members so that we are
always up to speed with things that do change.
47. Can I say that if it is a named day and
written question and you get three boxes on the left-hand side
and you are trying to follow through, do you genuinely think new
Members coming in understand that?
(Andrew Bennett) I do not think new Members understand
a lot of those things and it is a question of learning, but I
do not think you should set the system up just to make it easy
for people when they come in. I think any place should have rules.
The point I would make about the poor quality of the answers is
that to a certain extent that is in your hands. It should not
be appealing to the Speaker to come in as much but possibly the
panel of people advising the Speaker. If you get a rotten answer
in the Chamber and you really felt strongly about it, you walk
would down and stand in front of the Mace until the Speaker asked
you to withdraw. You will get enough publicity for that to make
sure that someone is running round getting the proper answers
to you.
(Norman Baker) You cannot do it very often.
(Mr Allen) Only once a day!
Chairman
48. I suspect that suggestion may be much canvassed
now! Before the other witnesses answer, can I put a supplementary
to what David Hamilton has said. Can I ask our witnesses whether
they support the proposal from the Principal Clerk in the Table
Office that named day questions—and we have referred to
them—should be rationed (which has been the proposal of
one or two of our witnesses) in return for additional opportunities
for Members to pursue matters if Ministers fail to give a proper
response on the named day, ie, there are other ways which will
be drawn up which will perhaps persuade the Minister to give a
proper answer by the named day?
(Mr Boswell) Can I say first on your specific question,
I strongly endorse that. I think the system is not working at
the moment because Ministers do not always honour their obligation
and they produce holding answers in something like 50 per cent
of the cases in my experience. All right, perhaps we in turn use
it to put pressure on Ministers when we should not do, but fewer,
better targeted and better addressed questions should be the motto.
Can I add a word on Mr Hamilton's earlier exchanges in relation
to ministerial answers, putting it the other way round and looking
at the Minister's end of it. I always used to get annoyed and
still remain annoyed that Ministers and their Parliamentary Clerks
and those who advise them are insufficiently sensitive to the
different nature of oral questions. All right, we want a proper
answer from Ministers but no oral answer should be more than about
three sentences without hopelessly spinning out question time.
Certainly, as a Minister myself, I always used to go down the
Order Paper and work out roughly how many would be called for
oral and try and give an oral answer and then anything over 20
I switched to written answer mode and answered appropriately.
The habit of Ministers giving mini-statements in response to high
questions on the Order Paper seems to me quite inappropriate.
(Ms King) I do think that named day questions should
be rationed but I also think written questions should be rationed
and this entire debate comes back to what was mentioned earlier
which is quality versus quantity and that is the decision that
Members have to make. When you are a new MP (this partly relates
to your question) you come to Westminster and it is like your
eyes adjusting to the dark to try and work out how the procedure
functions, and quite often you just think it is the blind leading
the blind. I think that a critical factor that has been raised
is training. Mr Winterton, you are absolutely right to direct
me towards the nice leaflet that no doubt would have explained
everything to me. The fact is that MPs of all people have "paper-itis".
We are overrun with the stuff and we need proper induction training
sections. I know the 1997 lot did not have that. We were given
the paper basically and tonnes of it and videos, but I think we
need more training and we need continual training. The very last
thing I would like to say is to apologise to everyone here, the
emergency was for me and I have to be admitted to hospital immediately.
I apologise, I would never leave a select committee under other
circumstances.
Chairman: Can I say to you that your position
is fully understood by me. I think you have behaved in an impeccable
way and the Committee has no criticism of you at you all; we fully
understand.
49. This will be a very short question. We have talked about
contemporary questions and that is the term used in a lot of areas.
Graham mentioned this Kilroy Silk situation. Would it not be better
instead of having that kind of discussion, to have maybe a session
in the morning of half an hour of contemporary questions raised
contemporarily from the day before and answered by Government
Ministers in response to the issues that have been affecting constituency
issues.
(Mr Allen) I think that is an excellent idea. It would
also bring the TV viewer, the elector, back into communication
with the House of Commons because people would look at that rather
than the Today programme or Newsnight. In one way
you get a feeling for that through business questions where you
get one person speaking for the Government who perhaps could bring
in Ministers. If you could do that on a regular policy-orientated
basis, again it may not be as formal and ritualistic as we are
used to but I think it would start to reconnect with people. One
of the things I do want to put on the record is my very deep concern
that not just that Parliament is held in contempt but that we
contribute to the way people view politics. It is our responsibility,
when we have appallingly low turn-outs and ever lower turn-outs,
to try and do something so people can say, "That is my Parliament
and they are being relevant to the issues that concern me and
my family."
Chairman
50. Following up Mr Luke's questions, do you think business
questions is one of the most productive hours during the week
when the Leader of the House and the President of the Council
comes and deals with a whole range of questions right across the
board and a Member of Parliament (as long as it does not go on
much longer than an hour) is guaranteed to get in to raise a matter
which he or she considers to be of key importance?
(Mr Allen) They are a conversation and they are open
questions; you do not have to give notice about them. Equally,
we are taking this further, if I may say so, because I think the
inference is that there would be a conversation, not just "this
is my question. this is your answer, can I come back on that",
and a dialogue like that, which would be respected, provided it
is managed properly by Deputy Speakers such as yourself who can
maintain that atmosphere and the fact that this question of culture,
and would be a tremendous step forward.
(Mr Boswell) I would echo a lot of that. We do tend
to forget just how odd it is to talk in sound bites and to always
be falling out with one another. In no sense do we want to take
off the table serious issues of political dissent and dialogue,
of course not, but I think anything which can be shown, as it
were, to show us conversationally engaging on issues in the way
that real people do outside this place, and to have shades of
view and to be able to join in the argument and discussion with
related (but not necessarily opposing) perspectives is a good
one, provided that is not all of it and we are talking about an
addition to what goes on rather than a replacement for it. I personally
have come on the whole to like Westminster Hall as a venue. Of
course there are still some formal elements of that and I am not
sure I would want to remove them but it does enable the Members
from different parties to engage on a common topic of interest
and usually doing it in a way in which most people participating
in it would regard as somewhat more constructive than some of
the other exchanges we have. Given that we have got a problem
with the public image of politicians and its acceptability to
the electorate, we had better start thinking about ways in which
we can vary the mixture and occasionally show them as they themselves
discuss these sorts of issues.
(Norman Baker) Business questions I have always regarded
as a sort of flip-side of Prime Minister's Question Time when
people can raise questions on any subject. The present Leader
of the House handles them with consummate skill although he does
not necessarily give very many answers. And he cannot; it is a
huge range of topics, but it does act as a useful sounding board
for Members of Parliament. If there are three or four people saying,
"Why has Lord Birt not been made more accountable?"
then hopefully someone will notice. Of course, nothing actually
happens to Lord Birt so perhaps the effect of the sounding board
is that it does not necessarily translate into changes in the
way the Government reacts. That is the point I want to finish
on. I think it is very useful you having this inquiry but the
objective from my point of view must be to strengthen the hand
of Parliament against the Executive. That has got to be the outcome
because in this arrangement we have in the House of Commons and
Parliament, we are in a weaker position in Parliament against
the Executive than is the case with many modern democracies elsewhere
in the world. The Government has more levers and can pull them
further and we in Parliament as ordinary Members of Parliament
have fewer levers and we cannot pull them very far at all. Therefore
any changes that are made should not only seek to modernise the
system and make it more realistic for people who happen to be
watching or wanting to participate in some sort of way (and Graham's
idea about that is worth considering certainly) it should also
crucially make the Executive more accountable and force them to
disclose more information which presently they are able to withhold.
That for me will be the test of whether or not your recommendations
and the recommendations of the Public Administration Committee
deliver the changes we need for this century.
51. I am not sure that I can give you any reassurance, Mr
Baker, but this Procedure Committee is a Committee of the House.
We are here representing the interests of the House. The House
needs to hold the Government of the day, from whichever party
it may come, properly to account and to scrutinise its policies
and administration and this Committee is here to facilitate that.
I hope that is some reassurance. The final word will lie with
Andrew Bennett.
(Andrew Bennett) If you are going to have a new system
of questioning it has to be to Cabinet Ministers and it should
not be to junior Ministers. I also think you should remember that
in a way Question Time should be the tip of the iceberg and it
is the things that go on behind. One of the nice things about
business questions is the briefing process that the Leader of
the House has to go through in that he has to get information
in from all sorts of departments so he can answer those questions.
It is important we see the process as not us and them, us against
the Executive, but the Executive responding to the agenda which
is set by Parliament, and on a lot of occasions the Executive
ought to take action because they are suddenly told there is a
problem by Members of Parliament and it is drawn to their attention
when the Civil Service may not have drawn it to their attention.
52. The final word was not with you Andrew; Graham, once
again.
(Andrew Bennett) The final word will be with you!
(Mr Allen) To respond to Mr Luke's question, there
is certainly one Minister who is doing a surgery for Members of
Parliament, the Minister who deals with immigration cases, and
it is open to all colleagues. We are almost there in a sense.
You could have a Minister each day doing this conversation on
the floor. It need not be the Leader of the House. As a final
word, Chairman, whatever we each Member of Parliament is prepared
to do with the BBC, we should at least be prepared to do in our
own Parliament.
Chairman: Can I thank our witnesses including Oona King who
necessarily has had to go. I fully understand her position and
I think she has been very helpful to us staying as long as she
has and coming back when she had to go and make a very urgent
telephone call. To my colleagues on the Committee can I thank
them for their stamina. I believe, and I hope our witnesses will
agree as well, that it has been a very constructive, very full
discussion of issues that are of vital importance to Parliament
if we are to do our job. On behalf of the Committee, can I thank
all of those who have come—Tim Boswell, Oona King in her
absence, Andrew Bennett, Norman Baker and Graham Allen. Thank
you very much indeed. I am very grateful to you. If the second
session we are having with colleagues is as productive as this
it really will have been very worthwhile.
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