Examination of Witnesses (Questions 121
- 139)
TUESDAY 19 MARCH 2002
MR JONATHAN
BAUME, MR
LORIMER MACKENZIE
AND MR
CHARLES COCHRANE
Chairman
121. On behalf of the Procedure Committee of
the House of Commons can I welcome most warmly our witnesses this
afternoon, representing, as they do, the Civil Service Unions,
the FDA, formerly the First Division Association but now, as I
understand it, the FDA stands for nothing except FDA, or maybe
I am ill-informed, and if I am I apologise. Jonathan Baume, the
General Secretary, who is in the middle, we welcome you, and your
colleague Mr Lorimer Mackenzie, Vice-President, you are welcome,
and from the Public and Commercial Services Union, PCS, Mr Charles
Cochrane, Director of Policy, Information and Research. You will
be aware, gentlemen, that our inquiry is into parliamentary questions
and the electronic tabling of questions and also parliamentary
motions. All of my colleagues will be taking part in this questioning
but I am going to begin. Can I put this to you by way of background,
could you, please, outline the ways in which parliamentary questions
are dealt with within Whitehall, and how this impacts on the staff
and the personnel that you represent? Does the Government give
any central guidance whatsoever on the mechanics of answering
questions or is this left to individual Departments of State?
Do you feel the system of preparing answers work efficiently?
Jonathan, do you want to start?
(Mr Baume) Thank you, sir. Thank you
for the invitation to come. My sincere apologies if there was
any confusion about our attendance, no discourtesy was meant to
the Committee, and we are very pleased to have the opportunity
to comment. We have submitted a short, written memorandum to help
provide some background. I think I will move straight over to
my colleague Lorimer Mackenzie, who is a serving civil servant
appearing in his FDA capacity and has had very practical experience
of this.
(Mr Mackenzie) I think you may find my detailed knowledge
of precise procedures in all departments rather lacking. If there
are gaps there they might better be addressed to the departments
themselves, who understand these, because departmental practice
varies. I have spoken to colleagues in some departments but I
can outline the general principles for you. Parliamentary questions
are directed to an individual department and there will be a central
unit within the individual department which will decide on the
allocation of those questions to a policy area for answer. The
question is then sent to the people responsible for that subject
area, usually the policy experts, for answer. When it lands on
the desk of the action officer—different terms in different
departments—the person taking the primary action, they will
get a piece of paper with the question, the member, the type of
question it is and the deadline for answer. There will be varying
departmental protocols for the time that that person has to answer
the question. When the answer to the question is returned it is
returned through the senior management and also through the Minister's
office, because the Minister gives the answer to Parliament. The
departmental practice on deadlines internally may differ. From
the point of view of the individual officer, to a certain extent,
the deadlines which Parliament imposes on the process are irrelevant.
What happens is you look at the top of the paper and you see the
date and the time by which the mechanism within the department
needs it and that is your deadline. I would not say it is a matter
of indifference to the individual but it does not matter whether
there is a one day gap or a two day gap before it goes to the
Minister and back to Parliament. For the individual preparing
the answer you work on the deadline at the top of the page. When
you receive a question, depending on the nature of the question,
the compilation of the question and whether it is an oral or a
written question one may be able to answer it from one's own experience
or one's own knowledge or one may have to bring in a variety of
other colleagues. The breadth of the work is obviously far greater
when preparing for an oral question. I know you have had a previous
session with Members who had been Ministers and they talked about
the process of grinding to a halt. I would not want to encapsulate
it like that, but open-ended questions require an awful lot of
colleagues to become involved in a lot of work in producing supplementary
answers for supplementary questions. When the package, whether
for a relatively short, straightforward written question or more
widespread or wide-ranging for an oral question, is ready it goes
back up to the Minister's office to see if the Minister will approve
it and the answer will be relayed to Parliament. That, in broad
terms, is reasonably standard throughout any department. As to
the impact on staff, the impact on staff tends not to be because
of the system, as we said in our evidence, it tends to be volume,
deadline, peaks and the balance of impact of PQs. Staff who work
in areas where Parliament might have a regular interest, where
they are likely to be topical all of the time, for instance the
Health Service or maybe Transport—which has been particularly
topical for some time now—I suspect that the departments
concerned would have resources which are allocated because they
are expecting a certain level of parliamentary interest, so they
will be, to some extent, resourced for. If the flow of parliamentary
interest in parliamentary questions is constant it is easily plannable,
you can look at the resources and you can allocate them on a fairly
regular basis. The difficulties arise when something blows up
out of nowhere and the resources, the staff who are working in
a particular area then have to deal with a very large, a very
understandable series of parliamentary questions and a volume
of parliamentary interest. That then has an impact on them, particularly
on their work-life balance, which obviously as a Union you have
a major wish to protect, it has an impact on those individuals.
Over the short-term that is pressure, and I would not want to
characterise it as stress, but where it happens regularly, when
the work loads, the demands, the volume and deadlines are excessive
then it can lead to stress on individual staff, so we are down
to fairly normal things like predictability and manageability
of work load. It is when it becomes unmanageable and unpredictable
the difficulties start, both from the point of view of the person
sitting at the desk who is deluged and the ability of that person
and the more senior management to manage the resources available
to meet the parliamentary demands. Parliamentary work does take
a priority which other work may not and there is an impact on
other work, which then has to be done in the time left after the
parliamentary deadlines have been met. The knock-on effect is
something that we also have concerns about. Government guidance
for individual departments, there is a central guidance framework
which comes from the centre, from the Cabinet Office, but individual
departments will tailor that to their needs, usually the mechanistic
needs of the individual department procedures may differ. The
guidance is in line with the purpose of parliamentary questions
to give information or to press for action. Guidance will also
be developed in line with practice. If we are looking at supplementaries
now the nature of any session, where things may have been difficult
or might have worked very well from the point of view of the Ministers
or the administration might give us lessons to be learned about
how to prepare supplementaries, the form for supplementaries,
the form for background notes and Ministerial briefing, all of
that tends to be a matter of Ministerial choice and departmental
guidance rather than central guidance. Much of the shape of parliamentary
practice and answering parliamentary questions tends to be up
to the individual department. If there were major issues which
were of concern to the House and to your Committee, where you
were making recommendations on ways in which things could be handled
that would be handled centrally and the departments would amend
their parliamentary practice, their departmental practice in line
with the central requirements.
122. Can I just put it again, you have given
a lengthy and very constructive reply to my opening question,
but do you feel the system of preparing answers works efficiently
and clearly as a practising civil servant? I put that question
to you and you can give an answer from your own experience?
(Mr Mackenzie) The system as I have experienced it
and as colleagues have—I have spoken to other departments—does
work relatively efficiently. I think you are looking at electronic
means, and I know you will be talking about electronic means,
and there are ways in which efficiency could be improved and there
are certain electronic things that would help in that. As far
as it goes it is a fairly effective and efficient system. There
is a system for answering the PQs as you have at the moment. We
have touched on, and no doubt we will return to, the volume of
information produced for supplementary parliamentary questions,
but I think that is less symptomatic or a factor of the system
for preparing answers than the nature of the session in which
the answers are given. The system for preparing answers is relatively
effective. The volume of material we have to produce for oral
questions is, I think, probably a wasted resource. That is more
dependent on the demand and the nature of the demand than it is
on the system which we live with in preparing the answers.
123. If we can be absolutely transparent, again
for my interest and for my colleagues on this Committee, to prepare
answers for an oral question, an oral question to the Prime Minister
or to the Secretary of State for health or education how much
time would be spent on preparing the range of supplementaries
that might be appropriate in connection with a particular question?
If you can give us the time and, therefore, perhaps, the cost
to the Civil Service I think it would just whet our appetites
and help us with future questions?
(Mr Mackenzie) I have to resort to the fact I do not
have statistics, again the departments may have. If I can give
you an example, the two are not quite comparable, parliamentary
questions and questions to the Prime Minister. Because of the
wide range of questions you can ask there is a fairly compendious
briefing which is maintained by Number 10 in order to make sure
the issues are there, and there is a rolling programme maintaining
that. It is because it is so general the level of questioning
at Prime Minister's Questions tends not to be as specific. Let
me give an example, if a parliamentary question is asked on health,
an oral is asked, and it is asked by a particular Member, what
the civil servants then do is check to see whether that Member
has a particular interest, whether that Member has been asking
questions previously, whether there is a known constituency interest,
all of these issues are raised in order to try and pull these
things together. The nature of the MP may be difficult, there
are MPs who have, let us say, a very good record for asking very
sensible, pointed and well-researched questions over a period
of time. The Father of the House is a very good example of somebody
who has asked questions significantly over a period of time. If
preparing a question and answer to a Member of that standing with
the knowledge of what that person brings to asking a question
a civil servant will have that in mind when preparing all of the
answers. If there is something which is more straightforward,
even if there has been an indication, perhaps, through a political
net—I think that was alluded to in previous sessions—where
a Member is asking for a particular interest because of a constituency
case or because they have a particular interest in the particular
subject the briefing might be better contained and might be more
detailed because of the nature of being able to whittle it down.
I am sorry, that was a how long is a piece of string type answer,
but that is the sort of Government you have.
124. Thank you very much. Could I now pass to
Charles Cochrane who may give further information to us on the
particular broad subject that I opened with.
(Mr Cochrane) I will certainly try. Could I say, I
am, perhaps, here in two capacities, both on behalf of PCS, which
is the biggest Civil Service Union, but I am also the Secretary
of Council of Civil Service Unions, which acts for all five, including
the FDA. Altogether the unions have about 400,000 members in the
Civil Service relevant to this discussion and in non-departmental
public bodies. I think a point worth making is that in dealing
with parliamentary questions the answer very often comes from
part of the Civil Service or even from non-departmental public
bodies which are a long way from Whitehall. Certainly some examples
which have been drawn to my attention in the past few days as
a result of your inquiry—I have to say my knowledge of parliamentary
questions and procedures has increased dramatically from a fairly
low base in the last few days—is that, picking up a point
that Lorimer made, there are parts of the Civil Service and there
are non-departmental public bodies which in the normal course
of events will not be the usual focus for parliamentary questions
and, therefore, a great deal of extra effort will have to go in
to try and provide the proper response you want. If I can use
a couple of examples, the Public Record Office would probably
not be somewhere in the normal course of events which would be
the subject of a lot of parliamentary questions, however as a
result of the 1901 Census it has been. Incredibly detailed questions
have been put down, including questions on the speed of computer
servers, and such things, which is extremely important. The Public
Record Office cannot, and it would not be proper, of course, have
a structured set up to answer that range and that depth of questions
on a regular basis and, therefore, that would put increasing pressures
on organisations. Also, the questions will go through a number
of levels to reach down to the people who will have the detailed
information. An example of this would, perhaps, be in the museums
and galleries. I think there has recently been questions about
how many exhibits are on loan from a national museum—I do
not think it matters which one—that would go in the case
of England to DCMS, no doubt to the policy people in there and
from there on into that department and to the museum. Again, they
would not have the set up to answer those in the same way that
the Department of Health would, or whatever. I think they, more
than most, will suffer from the problem of in many cases not being
entirely clear what it is that the questioner is seeking. Lorimer
has made this point, if you are dealing with these on a regular
basis and perhaps with the same Member asking a range of questions
you do build up a knowledge of what is being looked for in the
areas, however they do not have that experience. What the solution
to that is I am not sure but, perhaps, some understanding that
some parts of the Civil Service and the public sector do not have
the experience of dealing with these on a regular basis and that
some way of helping them in that process by being a bit clearer—dare
I say it—and consolidating the odd question into one would
be helpful, certainly to our members who have to try and answer
them.
Sir Robert Smith
125. If that is the situation might it not be
more productive if they got a letter rather than a parliamentary
question that they could respond to?
(Mr Cochrane) Can I plead guilty to something here?
I have done this. In our capacity as trade unions we have often
sought information and there are occasions when I would be guilty
of encouraging Members of Parliament to ask questions, it is partly
prompted by laziness on my part and sometimes, with a bit of effort,
the answer is available else where by another method. If I can
give you a recent example, something we as trade unions are quite
interested in is how health and safety issues are dealt with in
the Civil Service—as you may be aware, the law applies differently
because of the Crown and there are, therefore, things called Crown
notices and Crown central procedures. Traditionally we sought
this information by putting down parliamentary questions, which
involves all of the procedure we talked about.
Chairman
126. And you have answered them!
(Mr Cochrane) They have been answered. The information
is, in fact, available on the Health and Safety Executive website.
I suspect, and I think a lot of our members who have to deal with
parliamentary questions are increasingly aware of it, that there
is a mass of information these days on Government web-sites.
Sir Robert Smith
127. There is a desire to get things on the
record. My perception is that if a department gets, depending
on what you are trying to achieve, a letter that explains what
you are trying to achieve then in a sense if they want to ignore
it or sidestep it they can and then you have to go down the road
of lots of questions. In a sense, dealing with that and trying
to put together a picture—
(Mr Cochrane) Absolutely.
(Mr Mackenzie) Yes, it is a very much better mechanism
for certain types of issue, ones where there is a large volume
of sequential questions when the purpose of the sequential questions
is to get more information and to try and explore a topic in particular
detail. PQ answers are not necessarily the sort of mechanism you
would use for an expansive or discursive run through a policy.
There might also be sensitivities going back to the old PQs where,
to use the analogy, part of the supplementaries is knowing what
the constituency interest of a particular Member is. If that Member
has an interest in a subject generically, let us say, which has
been prompted by an individual case, then correspondence, possibly
even direct contact with the Minister or through the office with
others who could explain it, is probably a far better way of dealing
with that. I understand there are precedents in departments where
the minister has said that because of the nature of these inquiries,
which are broadly individual cases, arrangements have been made
and I think for immigration and nationality in the Home Office
arrangements have been made for MPs to go directly to the officials
because the nature of it means that it is not the sort of thing
you want to run through parliamentary questions. It does not help
either side. By extension there are subjects of the type you raise
which fall into that general type which would be far better done
through correspondence or through briefings or other mechanisms
because a parliamentary question does not in itself offer a sensible
way of doing it for either party.
128. In a sense though that is private. Do you
think there should be a way where either end of the correspondence
can agree or maybe pre-agree that it goes into the library or
something? You may want it officially on the record so that it
is in the public domain in a way that questions put it there,
but it wastes a lot of time.
(Mr Mackenzie) I think the whole purpose of a discursive
engagement, let us say, is the fact that you are trying to resolve
it to the satisfaction of the member as long as those involved
in preparing the answers for a briefing were not thinking they
were going to get ambushed later by the fact that it was going
to be put into the record somewhere without prior agreement, let
us say. The difficulty is that, without trying to characterise
the entire Civil Service as very cautious, ministers are publicly
accountable and we are accountable to ministers, and if we are
briefing for something going into the public domain it has to
be absolutely right because of public accountability. As long
as everybody understands the ground rules beforehand that seems
a far more sensible way than doing it through PQs because then
you get a sequence of shorter answers which a Member might not
see as helpful, but the minister is constrained because of the
nature of parliamentary questions in giving that type of answer.
Chairman
129. Can I move on to the second part of what
I want to ask you before I broaden it out into members of the
Committee and come on to a particular department and a matter
that you have touched on? The recent case of major delays in answering
parliamentary questions in the Department of Health is clearly
an embarrassment to the present Government. An internal investigation,
we are all aware, is now under way into this particular case,
so obviously I do not want to ask you from the Chair to comment
on that particular case, but do you think any general lessons
can be learned by what has happened and are improvements needed
in the monitoring of the processing of parliamentary questions
within Whitehall to bring about a situation in which there would
not be a repeat of what has happened in the Department of Health?
I am not sure who would want to answer that.
(Mr Baume) Can I answer initially? I think we are
all in some slight difficulty because, as you said, Chairman,
there is an internal inquiry and no-one wishes in any sense to
prejudice that for individuals. They were taking about 500 PQs
a week in the Department of Health, so I have had some initial
and relatively superficial acquaintance with what was alleged
to have happened, and I do not put that on record for obvious
reasons, but PCS certainly are involved in that particular case.
It may in the first instance be helpful if Charles were to say
something.
(Mr Cochrane) Thank you, Jonathan.
130. Are you in the hot seat?
(Mr Cochrane) Yes. I do not deal with the Department
of Health on a day to day basis but I am obviously aware of the
issue that you have raised. I think you are absolutely right:
there is an ongoing inquiry and it may or may not lead to action
against members of staff. Certainly if it did it is likely that
they would be represented by PCS, whether they were active or
passive participants in this. I do not think it would be right
at this stage to say anything that might be right in that particular
instance, although, if it would be helpful for the Committee,
when that matter is unfurled a little further and perhaps the
individual issues have been dealt with we would be happy to let
you have a note about any general points.
131. It would be very helpful.
(Mr Cochrane) On the other hand, in answer to some
of the inquiries we have made over the last few days as a result
of coming here today to our colleagues in other departments the
comments they have made would equally apply to any of the Whitehall
departments, so some of the points we have made already would
be just as relevant to DoH as to anywhere else. It would perhaps
be wrong at this stage to comment on that one until some of the
inquiries have gone further.
(Mr Mackenzie) I think I will leave that to my colleagues.
I do not know what the situation in the Department of Health is
with regard to monitoring. That would be for the internal inquiry
to look at.
132. But you would accept, would you not, that
it is unacceptable to have the sort of delay that has been experienced?
I am not seeking to comment on the precise cases that are being
investigated but surely there are some lessons to learn that there
should be some specific monitoring of the time that it is taking
to deal with questions.
(Mr Mackenzie) Yes, and as far as I know departments
do monitor. The question is, what happened with the systems in
this case, which is back to the inquiry itself.
(Mr Baume) Without treading too far, Chairman, my
understanding in that case is,—and I am saying this very
carefully, having got into hot water recently—that all of
the systems that were there appeared to show that things were
being done and it was only when people started to go beneath the
surface: "Hang on a minute. Our records appear to show that
a particular question has been answered and yet the Member concerned
has clearly not received an answer", that people started
to think that maybe something had happened. I know the Department
are taking this extremely seriously. The very fact that a statement
was made by the Secretary of State, which would probably not have
been normal in that situation, is an indication that the Department
took what appears to have happened extremely seriously and I have
no doubt at all that they will be very keen to learn the lessons
as well as trying to get to the bottom of the role of individuals
and what went wrong. We are in some difficulty, given that there
is still a process going on. As Charles has said, we would also
want to stand back until the Department has got a bit further
down the line of whether it is only an investigation or whether
some disciplinary action is warranted. There is a preliminary
investigation before deciding whether formal disciplinary charges
will be served on individuals. At that point we can come back
to this.
133. I am very grateful. Before I pass on to
David Hamilton I want to establish with you as witnesses today
that the purpose of our inquiry is to make the whole question
of procedure more efficient and effective for Members of Parliament
so that they can do their job not only of holding the Government
to account and questioning them on matters of considerable importance
to themselves, their constituents or the country, but also so
that they can follow up individual constituency cases to the full
and quickly.
(Mr Baume) I think it is fair to say that the responses
we have had from people raising these issues ourselves has been
welcome, the fact that this investigation is taking place and
that this inquiry was being held by the Committee. Certainly from
an FDA point of view we do believe that there needs to be effective
scrutiny of the executive and clearly parliamentary questions
play a very important part in that.
David Hamilton
134. Just before we go on to the questions I
have an observation to make. The point that Sir Robert made earlier
on about Members having to be on the record and therefore being
seen to be doing things is a very important point because sometimes
I think, as a relatively new Member, that you must get really
bogged down with some very archaic questions coming through which
have no relevance whatsoever. I have to say that Mr Mackenzie
has put paid to the old argument about Scotsmen giving a very
short answer because frankly that was one of the longest answers
I have heard. It has covered quite a number of things. Coming
in in June last year, I find that people still cannot believe
that you have got to put a question in two weeks ahead before
you can get a response back. I tell the public that if you want
to ask certain questions they have to be there two weeks ahead
and then you have to wait for that response coming back. When
the Leader of the House came and spoke to us he indicated quite
clearly that if questions that were tabled were responded to in
a week he would find that that would be reasonable. My question
to yourselves is, what would you see as the minimum time if you
put a question forward?
(Mr Mackenzie) It goes back to volume and turnround.
Chairman
135. By the way, Mr Hamilton is referring to
questions for oral answer.
(Mr Mackenzie) Yes. Again, it is back to the volume
and breadth of preparation. It is back to the supplementaries
and the nature of the oral question. If it is for information
and if it is straightforward then the information can be got quickly.
The nature of the environment into which oral questions is fired
is such that you would expect as a Member that the minister would
be accountable for a range of subjects which could be followed
up with supplementary answers, and they have to be prepared. If
you gave 48 hours for it to get through the department, that has
got to be through the mechanism, down to the official, the official
to prepare it, check with colleagues, produce not a compendious
coverage but a range of answers, and back through to the minister
who then has to agree them before going before the House, and
to give the time for the minister to get the officials to do any
more work as necessary to cover interests which the minister might
recognise to be the political interest of the Member concerned.
All of that would have to take place in a very short period of
time. The difficulty about that is that if the House were to decide
that you have 24 hours' notice, that would put very significant
pressure on the resources in the Civil Service in order to do
that and it would also compromise the quality of the answers that
you would get because the possibility for me doing my normal job
and to pick up a parliamentary question and think of all the answers
and the people I need to contact would be very difficult.
136. Surely there is a balance between a topical
question and getting the answer right to the question that has
been asked in the first place, which is always followed by a supplementary
anyway. The point about a two-week answer period is that you are
asking a question and you are anticipating whether in two weeks
the question will still be relevant. By reducing the amount of
notice that a Member has to give in tabling a question for oral
answer means that you are asking questions which are more relevant
in many cases to what has happened.
(Mr Mackenzie) Indeed, and I do not disagree with
that and I can understand that two weeks is too long. A week,
certainly speaking to our members here, would not cause significant
problems but if you go for the same volume in a week you are spreading
that requirement across a series of departments and of parts of
a department. If the question is more focused and we understand
what supplementaries there are likely to be, then the turnround
time can be quicker and the quality can remain. The more uncertainty
there is in the supplementaries the greater the need for anticipation
and professional guesswork, however you want to put it, on behalf
of the civil servants, the more people there need to be and the
more consideration needs to be given to preparing the package.
That is in order to make sure that you get the action for which
you are pressing as part of that PQ.
137. Do you think that there is in parliament
a sort of virility symbol in respect of the numbers of questions,
not for oral answer, but for written answer? I think of one of
my colleagues—I will not name him—who has tabled more
than 2,500 questions. Do you think that is a good use of written
question procedures or do you think that it is really an advancement
of one's political virility, ie, it is a virility symbol that
you really are doing your job as a Member of Parliament?
(Mr Mackenzie) I think I might be able to say that
it is not always apparent on receipt of a parliamentary question
why that particular mechanism has been used to raise the issue.
(Mr Cochrane) It would not be proper for us to comment
on the virility of Parliament, of course. Certainly the people
we have spoken to over the last few days are in the main very
conscious of a significant increase in parliamentary questions.
That might just happen to be the individuals of whom we asked
the question and how they responded, but it would be quite interesting
to look at general trends. Certainly, thinking of the example
that you have mentioned, one of the things that we are conscious
of and our Members are conscious of is what I would call the scatter-gun
question, the identical question asked of every department. On
a number of occasions it has occurred to us that that is taking
place because of a lack of understanding of how government and
the Civil Service operates. If I could give you perhaps a slightly
old-fashioned example of that, a few years ago a question was
put down to almost every department you could think of and probably
several that we perhaps were not entirely sure were departments
about canteens and catering for staff, a big issue at the time.
They all responded in slightly different ways. At that time there
was an organisation based in the Treasury called the Civil Service
Catering Organisation which could have given the answer, and a
much more detailed answer, on behalf of the entire Civil Service.
There are numerous examples of that sort of thing that we are
aware of. There were some recent questions put down about sickness
absence levels in the Civil Service. Again, there are central
sources in the Civil Service who can answer that and it strikes
me that it would be with a greater understanding, and I am not
quite sure where that understanding needs to be,—
138. Within the Civil Service. Does the right
hand know what the left hand is doing? If this information is
held centrally by the Treasury, should not all the departments
have known this and the whole thing been wrapped up in one question?
(Mr Cochrane) That is a question that it would be
interesting to get the answer to. I suspect the system is that
the question originates in the House and the Civil Service is
obliged to provide an answer to that unless we get into that situation
of cost and proportion. I do not think it is for the Civil Service
to respond to a question by saying, "You should have asked
somebody else".
Rosemary McKenna
139. You see, I think there is an issue there.
The Table Office are very careful about making sure that the question
is relevant to the department, is appropriate and is couched in
the right terms. I do believe there is a case for them saying,
"But that information is available" and indicating.
The reason I say that is that I am very concerned about what I
call the kind of serial questioning which then appears on the
front pages of a national newspaper used to attack other people,
to say, "I have asked", or, "So-and-so has asked",
or, "This party has asked all these questions and these people
have done nothing. They are lazy". I believe that a lot of
those questions are created by researchers and not by the Member.
Would you think it would be an appropriate mechanism for the Table
Office to be able to point the Member, when the question is presented,
to a source of the answer to that information?
(Mr Mackenzie) Yes, and it would be worthwhile pointing
out now that the FDA not only represents civil servants but also
the Clerks and staff of the House. The feedback which we have
had from departments is that the staff are very helpful from the
point of view of departments in making sure things are properly
directed. With regard to referring Members elsewhere, I think
the Table Office does that at the moment and colleagues and civil
servants in the departments are very grateful for the fact that
there is a significant sift mechanism in that environment. I know
from reading the transcript of the previous Members' evidence
that they are very grateful for the help that the Table Office
gives in giving them guidance on how to ask questions which go
to departments. A mechanism which points to Members individually
and says that the information is available elsewhere is very sensible.
Going further than that, the Table Office might usefully do that,
but I also think that ministers might be somewhat constrained
in using the same line because they do want to be helpful. I think
it would be very sensible if there was a greater culture on both
sides—the minister giving the answer and the House accepting
the answer—for the answer to say, "Please look at our
web site", we are allowed to do this but there is less usage
of it, or, "The House of Commons library has this".
That would help. At the risk of sounding slightly facetious, I
note from the previous evidence that there is an understanding
by the Committee and MPs that researchers are being used to generate
a large number of questions. The nature of the title suggests
that before generating a question they might do the research first
and then put the question if they find it is not in the public
domain.
(Mr Cochrane) Perhaps I should add that many of our
best friends are researchers.
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