Appendix 2
Ministerial Accountability and Parliamentary Questions:
Government Response to the Committee's Fifth Report of Session
2004-05 - Addendum on "Prorogation Answers"
The Government has recently responded to the majority
of the recommendations in your Fifth Report of Session 2004-05
on Ministerial Accountability and Parliamentary Questions. In
addition, the Committee recommended that I report on how the new
arrangements for dealing with Questions before Prorogation have
been working:
"We would strongly deplore any attempt by
departments to use the new arrangements for dealing with Questions
before Prorogation, intended to create greater transparency, as
a means of avoiding answering a Question. We are particularly
concerned about the performance of the Home Office in this respect.
We recommend that the Leader of the House should, by the end of
the year, review how the new arrangements have been working and
report to the House."
The Committee will recall that, in December 2003,
Mr Speaker wrote to the then Leader of the House (Rt Hon Peter
Hain MP), raising concerns about the number of 'I will write'
replies and the inaccessibility of subsequent responses. In your
report on 'Ministerial Accountability and Parliamentary Questions'
[Third Report, HC355, para 29] you raised similar concerns. The
Leader of the House of Commons' office worked closely with House
officials in formulating measures to address those concerns. These
were outlined in a Written Ministerial Statement issued on 21
July 2004 and guidance was issued to Government departments.
The Government believes that these new measures are
beneficial on two fronts; (i) the process is now more open and
transparent as the final answer is printed in Hansard, and (ii)
departments have been more disciplined in keeping the number of
'I will write' replies to a minimum.
The policy on answering Parliamentary Questions is
that "Named day questions must be answered on the date stated;
ordinary written questions should normally be answered within
a working week". I remain committed to ensuring that these
deadlines are achieved and am putting in place systems to ensure
that performance against these guidelines is effectively monitored.
The evidence gathered compares the periods between
Prorogation being announced and actual Prorogation from the 2002-03
and 2003-04 Sessions, i.e. the prorogation periods immediately
before and after the changes were introduced. It does not include
the period prior to dissolution in April 2005 as there is no other
period with which to make a reasonable comparison.
'I will write' replies
The numbers of Parliamentary Questions tabled to
departments in the two periods were comparable (2530 and 2441
respectively). The number of 'I will write' replies given during
these periods fell dramatically from 556 to 130. I believe that
a majority of Government departments have followed the guidance
and used the 'I will write' reply only when there has been a particular
reason for delay.
However, the Ministry of Defence were responsible
for issuing 124 'I will write' responses on the day of Prorogation.
These relate to questions tabled before Prorogation was announced,
for which they had been unable to provide a substantive response,
and to which a prorogation answer would not have been appropriate.
The Department hoped to provide substantive answers to these questions,
and kept that option open by issuing the 'I will write' responses.
However, as there was not an edition of the Official Report published
during this short period none of the responses mentioned above
would have been made available in this way. The MOD will be introducing
a new Parliamentary Toolkit after Easter this year which should
improve their ability to chase late replies and thus avoid the
need to use the 'I will write' response at the end of a session
to such a degree in the future.
The new procedure does allow for the substantive
answers to 'I will write' replies to be printed with the written
answers, giving greater transparency to Members and the public.
Departments should ensure that when an 'I will write' answer is
given, the substantive response should be issued before the last
edition of the Official Report for that session is produced.
Prorogation replies
The reduction of 'I will write' answers was due largely
to the availability of an alternative option, the prorogation
answer. The practice of issuing prorogation answers was first
made available at the end of the 2003-2004 session following concerns
that far too many questions remained unanswered at the end of
the session. Departments issued 456 prorogation answers at this
time. The majority of Government departments have followed the
rules and spirit of the guidance. Most departments only used the
prorogation answer when they had been unable to provide a substantive
answer due to the time constraints between the tabling of the
Question and Prorogation. There is some anecdotal evidence that
a number of Members took advantage of the opportunity to re-table
their question in the next session, following a prorogation answer.
The performance of three departments, the Home Office
(as highlighted in your report), the Department of Trade and Industry
and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, is
noted. Between them, they were responsible for nearly 80 per cent
of the 456 prorogation answers. Moreover, a high number of these
answers related to questions tabled before the prorogation period
was announced. Details of each department's performance are attached
(Annex A). Although Members remain free to re-table the question
in the next session, the intention of the change in procedures
was not to allow departments the means to avoid giving a substantive
answer to a question tabled in good time.
These concerns have been raised with the individual
departments and the guidance, which sets out the expectations,
has been re-issued to all Parliamentary Clerks. I also raised
the importance I attach to providing substantive and timely
answers to Parliamentary Questions at a recent meeting of the
Parliamentary Clerks Working Group.
I intend to monitor future performance and would
welcome any observations the Committee may wish to present to
me on future performance in this area.
Annex A — Use of Prorogation answers by Government
Department (Period 4-18 Nov 2004)
| Dept | Number of 'Prorogation answers'
| Number of 'Prorogation answers' given for questions which were tabled before Prorogation was announced
|
| Attorney General | 1 | 0
|
| Constitutional Affairs | 0 |
0 |
| Cabinet Office | 0 | 0
|
| Culture Media and Sport | 4
| 2 |
| Defence | 28 | 0
|
| Education and Skills | 18 |
0 |
| Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | 56
| 11 |
| Foreign Office | 5 | 1
|
| Health | 17 | 3
|
| Home Office | 231 | 94
|
| International Development | 0
| 0 |
| Leader of the House of Commons | 0
| 0 |
| Northern Ireland Office | 15
| 2 |
| Office Deputy Prime Minister | 4
| 0 |
| Prime Minister | 0 | 0
|
| Scotland Office | 0 | 0
|
| Trade and Industry | 75 |
46 |
| Transport | 1 | 0
|
| Treasury | 1 | 0
|
| Work and Pensions | 0 | 0
|
| Welsh Office | 0 | 0
|
Data source: Government Department Parliamentary
Branches
| 
