House of Commons - Written Parliamentary Questions

Written Parliamentary Questions - Procedure Committee Contents

3 Tabling Questions

Types of Questions

'TRIVIAL' OR 'FRIVOLOUS' QUESTIONS

12. Erskine May states that questions 'must not be trivial, vague or meaningless'.[21] The question of whether or not a question is trivial is particularly pertinent given the rise in the number of questions, and accusations that some Members may be tabling questions not as part of a genuine search for information, but in order to push up their tabling statistics. David Laws MP noted that using questions 'in an utterly frivolous way, because you have a bored researcher, or whatever, would run the risk of bringing the system into disrepute'.[22]

13. The then Leader of the House, Jack Straw MP, told us in 2007 that many questions tabled were 'without serious value'[23] and were taking up departmental resources that could better be spent on more 'serious' questions. In particular, he cited questions asking about domestic management issues such as 'flushing lavatories, private office square footage, wine cellars, flora and fauna, flag-flying, [and] staff magazines'.[24] He suggested that there should be stronger rules to prevent 'trivial' questions of this kind, stating 'this is ridiculous. It debases the system'.[25]

14. Others argued that questions that seem trivial may, however, have a serious basis, and this also applies to the examples cited by Mr Straw. Oliver Heald MP believed that 'identifying waste and extravagance in Government is a valid reason for tabling WPQs and so-called 'trivial' questions may still be of value'.[26]

15. Without knowing the motivation of the Member it is difficult for any observer to reach a definitive judgement on whether or not a question is trivial. When the Table Office clerks consider that a question does not fall within the rules as set out in Erskine May, they will 'card' the question. This means that they will send a message to the Member concerned, inviting him or her to come into the Table Office to discuss the question and any obstacles to it being tabled. The Table Office told us that they would only 'very rarely and with extreme reluctance' card a question on the grounds of triviality, given the many reasons a Member might have for asking it.[27] The 'triviality' of a question can therefore often be judged only by reference to the Member. David Laws MP told us:

I do not know how, without self-policing, we can really strike the right balance without denying access to things for which the Government wants to cover up the boundaries.[28]

16. We understand the frustration of departments when dealing with questions that may seem frivolous. However, Members may have serious motives for tabling these questions, and must be allowed to do so. We do not agree with the suggestion of the former Leader of the House that there should be stricter rules against such questions. It is not appropriate to ask the Table Office to judge definitively whether or not a question is trivial, and the benefit of the doubt in these cases must be given to the Member. Departments should aim, as with all questions, to provide a full and accurate answer, even if the question appears trivial.

ROUND ROBIN QUESTIONS

17. 'Round robin' refers to the same question asked to many or all government departments. Round robins allow Members to build up a wider picture of Government activity across departments, and can be particularly useful for identifying departments that are performing poorly in a certain area. However, round robins can also allow many questions to be tabled for relatively little effort. In 2007 the then Principal Clerk of the Table Office told us that round robins had become a useful tool in the armoury of Members wishing to push up their tabling statistics.[29]

18. The number of round robin questions is continuing to grow,[30] contributing to the overall rise in the number of WPQs. The burden on departments answering questions is complicated by the fact that round robins may not be directly relevant to every department. For example, the then Deputy Leader of the House told us: 'it is quite easy to spot round robins. They come to the Leader of the House and nearly always they are completely inappropriate. I am always answering "nil", "none" or "not applicable"'.[31] The Table Office tries to weed out irrelevant round robins, but is not always able to do so.[32]

19. It has to be recognised that, even if some round robins may not seem immediately relevant, as with apparently trivial questions the Member may have a valid reason for addressing the question to that particular department. Asking an apparently irrelevant question may reveal an important wider point. In addition, identical questions allow easy comparison of the level of information provided. The inevitably varied approaches of parliamentary units can, sometimes unfairly, show some departments to be less helpful than others. This variation in the quality and content of answers is sometimes a source of grievance for Members, but it can also be one of the most valuable aspects of round robins, highlighting variations of practice, or showing where a government 'message' has not quite filtered through to a department.

20. The then Deputy Leader of the House suggested to us that, although the Government already tries to provide a coordinated response to round robins, it would be easier if a question was clearly flagged as such and if the Government then had the time to produce a single, coordinated response giving the information from all relevant departments.[33] He suggested that this could also produce a better standard of answer for Members. It is true that such an approach could remove the need to table large numbers of questions on a single point, and that it could also remove the temptation of making statistical gains by tabling round robin questions. However, a formal process whereby round robins were sent to a central government unit would remove the benefits for Members of tabling round robin questions, notably the opportunity to identify variations in practices and 'chinks in the armour'. In any event, the Government can already try to identify round robins and coordinate a response, if it so wishes.

21. Members should be free to table round robins to all departments, if they wish. The Table Office should try to identify instances where a round robin is not relevant to a particular department, and advise the Member accordingly, but the Member should continue to have the benefit of the doubt. However, Members should be encouraged to consider carefully whether questions are relevant to all departments, and should recognise that a smaller number of carefully focused questions may be more effective.

QUESTIONS WHERE THE INFORMATION IS ALREADY AVAILABLE TO MEMBERS

22. Current rules on tabling state that questions should not be tabled if they seek information readily available to a Member, either self-evidently or as revealed in past answers. Indeed, the 2002 Report of the our predecessor Committee urged:

all Members of the House, and their staff, to develop greater awareness of alternative sources of information, especially via the Internet, and to seek information by means of parliamentary questions only if those alternative sources have been explored and found wanting. Members must ensure that their staff do not draft PQs as a first resort when researching a particular issue.[34]

23. The then Leader of the House told us in 2007 that if researchers consistently turn to WPQs as their first resort this could constitute 'straight abuse' of the system.[35] The then Deputy Leader of the House asked Members to bear in mind that there was sometimes a swifter route to obtaining information than tabling a WPQ.[36] The Table Office tries to assist this process by checking if information is already available, in particular by searching Hansard and PIMS (the Parliamentary Information Management Service) to see whether the information has already been given in an answer.[37] Where information is found to be readily available in published departmental reports, or where past answers have confirmed that the information is readily available on websites, the Table Office will card the question.[38]

24. There is a difficulty that, while information may be available, it may not always be easy to find or interpret. For example, Members may require a single nugget of information concealed within a lengthy and complex publication of statistics. David Laws MP described a situation where a department directed him to information that was only obtainable if available figures were manipulated in the right way: 'you would have needed a doctorate in economics to come up with it. That is not my definition of publicly available'.[39] The then Leader of the House told us in 2007 that where available information was dense or obscure, and Members only wanted a small section of it, the answering department should oblige by providing the information in a more accessible form.[40] The then Deputy Leader of the House reiterated this by stating that even when information was available elsewhere, departments should be as helpful as possible.[41] This message is encouraging, but it must be consistently adopted by all departments. Chapter 4 of this Report addresses this issue in more detail.

25. In certain cases Members will be aware that the information is already in the public domain, but will have a secondary motive for asking the question. As well as wanting to get a Minister's views on the record,[42] Members might ask questions in order to raise awareness that a publication is available[43] or to prompt publication of updated information.[44] David Drew MP noted that WPQs asking for information that was already available could help by 'focusing [a Minister's] attention on an issue about which you might subsequently be able to talk to them informally'.[45] These secondary motives are valid, and demonstrate the many valuable alternative uses of WPQs. The rules on the availability of information should not prevent questions from being used in this way.

26. Members should not use WPQs as the first resort for obtaining information that could be available elsewhere. We strongly encourage Members to investigate other options before tabling a WPQ. The Table Office should continue to seek to identify, where possible, when information is available elsewhere. However, we recognise that Members may have legitimate reasons for asking such questions, such as wanting to get a Minister's views on record or wishing to see the information presented in a certain way.

The Table Office

RESOURCES

27. The Table Office is at the front line of the WPQs system. Among other duties, the Office is responsible for processing, editing and sorting questions; ensuring they meet the rules of the House; and advising Members on drafting. All questions flow through the Table Office, and it has therefore been particularly affected by the consistent increase in the volume of questions.

28. In particular, it is worth noting that the statistics on question numbers only show those questions that are deemed orderly and make it to the notice paper for the following day. The actual number of questions tabled and handled by the Office can be significantly greater, and it is the 'carded' questions (i.e. initially disorderly questions that require discussion with the Member) that are often the most labour-intensive for the Table Office.[46]

29. At present, all questions tabled must be processed that day. As the numbers of questions have crept up, this has imposed a particular burden on the Table Office, especially late in the day. Even when additional staff have been provided, and rosters revised in an effort to counter the problem, Table Office clerks have often had to work overtime hours after the rise of the House, and occasionally beyond midnight on Mondays and Tuesdays.[47] This then impacts on the staff of the Office of the Editorial Supervisor of the Vote, who are responsible for printing questions.

30. The skills, knowledge and professionalism of the Table Office clerks are highly valued by Members. However, there is a risk that continued pressure on the Office could inevitably come to affect the quality of its work. The then Principal Clerk of the Table Office, warned in 2007 that the high workload affected 'the ability of Table Office Clerks to do their job as effectively as would be ideal, giving rise to the risk of uneven application and interpretation of the rules',[48] while Nick Walker, a Table Office Clerk, told us more recently that sometimes the volume of questions could make it difficult for the Office to weed out questions that were not relevant to certain departments.[49] Jacqy Sharpe, the current Principal Clerk of the Table Office, noted that a sixth full time clerk might prove necessary if question volumes remained high.[50]

31. The Table Office provides a vital and highly valued service, the quality of which must be maintained. The rise in the volume of question is not a temporary phenomenon and should no longer be handled on an ad-hoc basis. The resources of the Table Office, and other offices involved in the process of handling and printing questions, should be increased wherever necessary to maintain standards and meet demand for the long-term.

E-TABLED QUESTIONS

32. The success of the e-tabling system (which now regularly accounts for more than 50% of all WPQs tabled[51]) has caused large spikes in the volume of questions coming into the Office in the late afternoon and evening, as Members' offices submit sometimes hundreds of questions at the end of their working day. The then Principal Clerk of the Table Office told us this phenomenon was responsible for much of the late night working in the Office.[52] Nick Walker proposed a possible solution of limiting the number of questions a Member could have in their electronic 'basket', the part of the e-tabling system that stores drafted questions before they are submitted to the Table Office:

After a Member had drafted 30 questions the system would not allow him or her to draft any more until those had been sent off to the Table Office. The Member could then start a new basket. It would not affect the total number; it would just mean that questions would have to be sent in regularly to the Table Office, rather than arrive in a huge pile at the end of the day.[53]

33. It is certainly in Members' interests that their questions are processed promptly and effectively, rather than as part of a large backlog in the early hours of the morning. Setting a maximum 'batch size' for e-tabled questions would be an effective way of smoothing the Table Office workload, but there is a risk that it may unnecessarily restrict the tabling habits of Members. As such, we believe it is best first to experiment with a voluntary system. Members should be encouraged to submit questions in small batches. Such an encouragement should appear on the e-tabling page, and in confirmation emails for e-tabled questions. In the event that there continues to be a problem with large quantities of e-tabled questions submitted in single batches, we would be prepared to reconsider placing a firm limit on the number of questions permitted in the e-tabling 'basket' at any one time.

CUT-OFF POINT

34. In 2007 the then Principal Clerk of the Table Office suggested that an earlier cut-off point for processing questions tabled each day could be a further option for easing the flow of questions through the Table Office.

One option would be to bring forward the cut-off point on Mondays and Tuesdays to say 8pm, either generally or for e-tabled questions, while still guaranteeing that Named Day questions would be dealt with. Other questions would be processed so far as time allowed, up until the rising of the House.[54]

35. David Drew MP said he would support an earlier cut-off if it meant clerks were able to perform their duties carefully and effectively.[55] The current Principal Clerk of the Table Office, Jacqy Sharpe, added that in the event of an earlier cut-off being imposed, the Table Office would still seek to process that day any questions brought in person to the Table Office by Members.[56] While this would meet the concern raised by the then Deputy Leader of the House that there should still be a way of tabling and processing urgent questions late in the day,[57] other witnesses were sceptical of the value of an earlier cut-off time. Oliver Heald MP rejected the idea:

Personally, I would not be in favour of it. I think the Table Office should be geared up to meet the needs of Members because this is such a vital tool. […] Our job is to hold the Government to account. This is a key way of doing it. If we need to have a few more clerks, let us have them, but let us not give up on something as important as this.[58]

While David Laws MP said it was 'not usually vital' for him that questions were processed that day rather than the next morning, he agreed that he 'would not want the system to be designed too much around administrative convenience rather than accountability to Government'.[59]

36. While we recognise that administrative convenience should not unnecessarily restrict the tabling of questions, we do believe that action must be taken to smooth the workload of the Table Office and ensure that each and every question receives the most thorough consideration. It is clearly undesirable for questions to be processed hurriedly in the early hours of the morning. As such, we recommend introducing a cut-off point for the processing of e-tabled questions. Questions tabled electronically after 7pm on Mondays and Tuesdays, 6pm on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and 2.30pm on Fridays (or, in each case, the rising of the House, if earlier) would be treated as having been tabled the following day, and processed accordingly. No such cut-off point should be applied to questions tabled in person.

Guidance on Tabling Questions

37. The main principles of the House's rules on tabling questions are set out in Erskine May,[60] but neither the form nor the text is particularly helpful to Members. The Table Office has recognised that some of the existing rules are quite difficult to understand,[61] with the former Principal Clerk of the Office noting: 'The rules as set out in Erskine May are not always easy to interpret. Some past decisions and interpretations of the Chair recorded are arcane and deal with issues of little obvious relevance'.[62] As a result, the current rules on tabling are not as well understood as they could be.

38. The then Deputy Leader of the House told us that most Members have a broad understanding of rules, but sometimes 'need to have it cleared up'.[63] This clarification of the rules is a key function of the Table Office, and although their advice on individual cases is generally greatly appreciated, we recognise that their intervention can occasionally be irritating for Members. Members told us that the Table Office can sometimes seem 'restrictive' or 'pedantic' in their treatment of written questions,[64] and that the carding a question could lead to a significant delay, causing the question to lose its topicality.[65] However, the Principal Clerk of the Table Office stressed to us that the aim of the Office is not to restrict or reject questions, but 'to help Members to table questions as is their right within the rules that we implement on behalf of Mr Speaker'.[66]

39. Clearer and more readily available written guidance, especially if it brought together the substance of various Speaker's rulings on questions, would help to raise awareness and appreciation of the rules enforced by the Table Office, and would improve Members' understanding of why their questions may have been carded. Improved guidance could also raise the standard of questions brought into the Table Office in the first place, reducing the need for carding and thereby speeding up the tabling process for Members and the Table Office alike.

40. The Table Office have indicated they would be happy to give consideration to providing further guidance to Members,[67] and indeed the then Principal Clerk of the Table Office included a possible codification of the rules as an annex to his evidence submitted to us in 2007.[68] However, he also noted there were risks involved in producing this codification:

Their effect might well be to import a rigidity into the system which would not benefit Members. Guidelines might also encourage mass production of templated Questions. Furthermore, the nature of disorderly Questions varies over time, and rules which seem useful at one moment may fail to address a novel or reinvented formulation at the next.[69]

Recognising these risks, the current Principal Clerk of the Table Office stressed the need for any new guidance to have an informal status that could be easily revised and updated without requiring a decision on the floor of the House.[70]

41. The rules as set out in Erskine May should remain the procedural basis for Table Office decisions. However, Members would benefit from a clearer codification of the rules and additional guidance, especially when drafting questions or dealing with carded questions. We recommend that such codification and guidance be developed by the Table Office and made available to Members, based on the draft codification submitted to the Committee by the then Principal Clerk of the Table Office. This new guidance would explain the rules as set out in Erskine May and in Speaker's rulings, and would offer general advice on their interpretation. Both the codification and the guidance would remain informal documents to allow them to be regularly revised and updated to reflect changes in interpretation or patterns of answering.

Authentication

42. The 2002 Report of our predecessor Committee recommended that that an e-tabling system be introduced on an experimental basis. However, the Committee remained cautious, and recommended that the House should 'confer on Mr Speaker by resolution a reserve power, to be exercised on the basis of advice from the Table Office, either to impose quotas on the number of questions Members may table electronically, or to halt the experiment altogether, if in Mr Speaker's opinion the number of questions increases excessively or other significant abuses are suspected'.[71] This condition formed part of the motion agreed to by the House on 29 October 2002, approving the Committee's Report.

43. The e-tabling system was introduced following the House's decision. As well as proving a technical success,[72] the system has also won over many Members, with e-tabled WPQs now regularly exceeding 50% of all WPQs tabled.[73] The then Deputy Leader of the House gave his support to the e-tabling system, describing it as 'enormously useful to the vast majority of Members'.[74] It is true that remote tabling can in some cases complicate and prolong the tabling process, especially when the Table Office has to 'card' a question, but on the whole, e-tabling has been successful and should continue.

44. This is not to say that e-tabling is without its challenges. In particular, the remote nature of e-tabling has led to concerns that Members have less involvement in the tabling process, and that some Members have gone too far in delegating the preparation of WPQs to their staff. These concerns are not unique to e-tabling, but the particularly remote and impersonal nature of an electronic tabling system would make it easier for a Member determined to conduct his business this way.

45. There is only anecdotal evidence to support these concerns. The current system relies on passwords for security, and the presumption is that these passwords are not disclosed. However, the then Deputy Leader of the House told us that that 'is not what we all know is actually happening'.[75] The former Leader of the House told us that a Member had admitted to him in conversation that he did not always know what questions his researcher was tabling in his name.[76] Such cases are very difficult for the Table Office to spot definitively, but some instances have raised suspicions:

the Office has the impression that Members may on occasions countenance the tabling of Questions in their name of whose content they have little or no knowledge, since when asked to discuss Questions about which there is a problem it is evident that they are seeing them for the first time. On other occasions the content is such that it is hard to believe that it could have been seen and approved by a Member.[77]

46. In 2007 the then Leader of the House told us that cases of this kind were making a significant contribution to the rise in the number of questions.[78] David Drew MP also warned of the consequences for individual MPs of delegating responsibility in this way:

Any Member who does that is mad. They will be caught out sometime; it will go wrong. Some researcher will put in a bizarre question that the press will pick up and they will be slain alive. [79]

This has not yet come to pass but, crucially, delegation to this extent undermines the principle that the tabling of WPQs is the exclusive right and responsibility of Members of Parliament. The 2002 Report of the our predecessor Committee concluded that 'Members must take direct responsibility for all questions tabled in their name'.[80] It is unrealistic to expect Members not to involve their researchers in the WPQs process. Researchers will inevitably have some involvement in the preparation of questions and the different arrangements between Members and their staff make it difficult to state that Members should have a particular level of involvement in the WPQs process. Some Members may allow researchers to prepare questions independently, but then authorise and table them themselves. Other Members may prepare questions themselves, but then delegate the act of tabling to staff. Oliver Heald MP told us: 'I draft my own questions but I may well say to my researcher, "Could you table these?" I do not see that the technical aspect of him pressing the button matters much'.[81]

47. While it would clearly be desirable for Members to be fully involved at all stages of the WPQs process, office arrangements of this kind are at the discretion of individual Members. However, it must be recognised that the researcher's involvement should only go so far. The then Deputy Leader insisted 'this is about MPs and not researchers scrutinising Government'.[82] What is vital is that Members take responsibility for the questions tabled in their name, whatever arrangements they may have in place.

48. Moreover, in the event that it was decided to police Members' involvement in preparing and tabling questions, it would not be easy to identify whether an abuse was taking place. The Table Office insisted that it had to work on the basis that if a question came from a Member's e-tabling account, it had been authorised by that Member,[83] and there could be an explanation for even apparently suspicious circumstances:

The Office rarely has incontrovertible evidence that an e-tabled question has not been authorised by a Member. Even if the Member is known to be otherwise engaged at the time of receipt, including speaking in the Chamber, it may be that it was authorised in advance and that the Member's staff are acting on an instruction to send it in.[84]

49. The Table Office told us that it would appreciate a reiteration of Members' responsibilities in tabling questions, as a 'welcome statement of what we hope and understand is the practice'.[85] The then Deputy Leader of the House went further and asked for a particular level of involvement in the tabling process to be written into the Code of Conduct for Members.[86] We do not wish to restrict Members unnecessarily, and believe that the wide range of valid individual office arrangements for preparing and tabling questions would make it difficult to establish guidance insisting on particular levels of involvement at particular stages in the process, and unfair to impose sanctions if there were deviation from this single model. Instead, we recommend that Members be reminded regularly that WPQs are a proceeding in Parliament and that they are personally and directly responsible for questions tabled in their name. This reiteration should be made to all Members at the beginning of a new Parliament. It should also be made to Members signing up to the e-tabling system; should appear on the e-tabling pages; and should be included in every email acknowledgement of questions tabled.

50. The Committee understands that researchers are likely to have a role in preparing questions, but tabling questions is an exclusive right and responsibility of Members of Parliament. Members must take full responsibility for the questions tabled in their name, and each individual Member must satisfy him or herself that they have had sufficient involvement in the preparation and tabling of their questions to be able to do so. The Table Office should not be expected to make a judgement of the level of Member involvement.

AUTHENTICATION TECHNOLOGY

51. Our predecessor Committee's 2002 Report recognised that the method of authentication for e-tabling might need strengthening in the future, if Members were found not to have used the system 'in a responsible manner'. The current password-operated authentication system is a 'weak' authentication system. At least one extra factor (for example, recognition of some physical characteristic or token held by an individual Member) would have to be introduced in order to constitute a 'strong' authentication scheme.[87]

52. Both the former Leader of the House and the former Deputy Leader of the House told us that the authentication system needed strengthening in order to reinforce confidence in the system.[88] However, it is not certain that stronger authentication would avoid abuse. Firstly, PICT (the Parliamentary ICT service) warned that even the seemingly strongest scheme could be compromised given enough time and effort, or if the Member had a vested interest in handing on the necessary information or tokens.[89] Secondly, strong authentication at the point of tabling proves only that a Member has tabled the question, not that the Member has read the question or been involved in its preparation.[90] In 2007 the then Leader of the House called for 'an assurance that the tabling is by the Member and they have applied their brain to it',[91] yet stronger authentication could only guarantee the first part of this requirement.

53. We recognise that a stronger authentication system for e-tabling could assure a guaranteed minimum level of Member involvement at the point of tabling. But, given that any stronger authentication would involve significant cost to the House, such a measure should only be undertaken if there is confidence that it could address a genuine problem of excessive delegation of the preparation of WPQs to researchers. The e-tabling system already assumes that questions received from a Member's account have been authorised by that Member, and this would remain the assumption under stronger authentication. Imposing a further level of authentication would provide only a superficial solution to the much more complex underlying problem of attitudes to the WPQs process. The challenge is to reform these attitudes by ensuring Members understand their responsibilities, rather than imposing further technical restrictions on the work of Members.

21 Erskine May, 23^rd Edition, p353 Back

22 Q78 Back

23 Q15 Back

24 Q46 Back

25 Q56 Back

26 Q74 Back

27 Q109 Back

28 Q94 Back

29 Ev 45 Back

30 Ev 45 Back

31 Q155 Back

32 Q106 Back