Examination of Witness (Question Numbers
160-179)
CHRIS BRYANT
MP
11 MARCH 2009
Q160 Mr Gale: If you believe that—for
the record, I certainly do—do we go to the stage of saying
that there will be sanctions against a Member who abuses that
system? We can talk about what those sanctions are in due course.
Chris Bryant: I am not so sure
about sanctions. If one writes something into the code of conduct
for hon Members the moment they break that code it can be reported
to the Committee on Standards and Privileges which will decide
that matter. For that matter, at one point I raised the question
of how an hon Member who was in the Big Brother house could have
signed up to an EDM whilst he was not at liberty to attend the
House. The Speaker conducted a short investigation into that.
It had all been done before he went into the Big Brother house,
but I think that if in those or any other circumstances it seems
that the hon Member prima facie had absolutely no involvement
whatsoever then other hon Members would be irate about it.
The Committee suspended from 3.47 pm to
4 pm for a division in the House
Q161 Sir Peter Soulsby: When the then
Leader gave evidence to the Committee in 2007 he spoke quite powerfully
about the impact on departments who had to answer the increasing
volume of questions. Obviously, those questions are not evenly
spread between departments and there is a particular impact on
parts of particular departments. To what extent do you think departments
are geared up adequately to respond to the number of questions
they get and to respond in ways that are meaningful to the questioner?
Chris Bryant: If we quadrupled
the number of staff the pinch point would still be the ministers
because there is a fixed number of them. If 300 questions to the
local government minister are tabled he has to provide answers
to them whoever has drafted them for him or her. Each department
has a parliamentary clerk and each will have between two and six
staff working with them. By my reckoning there are 20 parliamentary
clerks and 56 other dedicated parliamentary question staff in
departments. However much you increase the number, in the end
the problem is ministerial time.
Q162 Sir Robert Smith: To reinforce
that point, is it your impression at least that the pinch point
is not the absence of clerks to deal with it but the fact that
all of them have to be filtered through the minister?
Chris Bryant: The number of ministers
has not gone up but the number of questions to certain departments
and elements within them has increased dramatically. The Department
of Health has far more questions than other departments and of
late DCLG has had a very large number of questions. Quite often
it is opposition spokespeople who ask the questions. For instance,
on the list of questions last Friday there were 110 ordinary questions
tabled of which 72 came from three Members: Philip Hammond, Mark
Hoban and Rob Wilson. I have already referred to the fact that
last Thursday there were 163 questions tabled by one Member, Stewart
Jackson, of which 138 were to his opposite number in the department.
Q163 Sir Peter Soulsby: In that sense
it cannot really be said that it is the volume of questions and
the fact there is not a sufficient number of clerks to process
them that prevents departments from giving what is sometimes seen
as less than helpful answers?
Chris Bryant: No. What is a satisfactory
or unsatisfactory answer is a moot point. I know of questions
which, if the Member had gone to see the Table Office, would probably
have been tabled in a more readily understandable way.
The Committee suspended from 4.03 pm to
4.17 pm for a division in the House
Q164 Sir Peter Soulsby: I want to ask
about the effect on the quality of questions and put to you what
the former Principal Clerk said to us. It is not just Members
who perceive that the quality has deteriorated. We were told that
since the rise in the volume of written questions "answers
from some departments may be less helpful than they used to be".
Therefore, not just those who receive the answers have the impression
that the quality has declined; those who process them also have
that belief. Is that accurate? If so, is it something that is
happening within the departments, or perhaps is it the nature
of the questions?
Chris Bryant: I do not think draftsmanship
has become more slapdash and there are more inappropriate commas
and too many inaccuracies because there are too many questions
and not enough staff to draft decent answers. I believe that ministers
feel somewhat under the cosh because of the number of questions
they have to answer. It stands to reason that if the number of
ministers remains the same but there are more questions you have
to spend more time during the day which still has the same number
of hours to deal with them than you did in the past. I have never
managed to find a way to evaluate across the House whether or
not the quality of questions is improving. What we try to do is
ensure that answers are timely. The Leader of the House regularly
writes to the whole ministerial team to say how important that
is. I meet parliamentary clerks to emphasise how important all
of this is. We are trying to find whether there are ways to improve
the service that ends up going to Members, hence the discussion
you had earlier about the electronic parliamentary community.
I hope that in the end that may be able to deliver a swifter answer.
I am conscious of the fact that the PIMS system is not very good
at providing accurate figures and so on.
Q165 Sir Peter Soulsby: Obviously,
the number of named day questions that Members can ask is now
limited, but even with its limited availability there is a perception
that Members get a disproportionate number of holding answers
as a result. I suppose that in a sense that is related to the
point you have just been talking about. Do you think there is
any way in which that can be improved?
Chris Bryant: There is a difficulty
in that sometimes there is a question that is capable of being
read in perhaps four different ways. Normally, one would ring
up the Member and ask what he or she is trying to get at and find
the answer, but that process tends not to happen because you would
end up ringing up hundreds of Members all the time. Questions
are designed as a means to provide information to Members and
as a way to scrutinise government, but when they are used merely
as a party-political tool politicians become nervous about how
to answer questions. I think that that may end up being reflected
in the quality of the answer. But the ministerial code is clear
about how helpful ministers should be.
Q166 Mr Gale: Some ministers are
extremely good and bust a gut to provide the answer. If it is
a straightforward question that warrants a straightforward answer
you get it. Other departments and ministers seem to have the absolutely
standard practice of saying, "I will reply to the hon gentleman
as soon as possible", and that is all a Member gets within
the two days. A week or 10 days later you get a substantive answer.
I just wonder whether you can look at custom and practice within
departments, because it seem to be the culture in some departments
to say that is what they do with questions irrespective of their
quality or detail.
Chris Bryant: There may be cases
where that is true, though it is a simple fact that some departments
have many more questions per minister; in particular, some parts
of departments have many more multiples of questions per ministers
than others. I end up answering five or 10 a week, whereas others
will answer more than that per day. I think that produces a different
mindset. I am always happy to follow up. Quite a few hon Members
have come to me. Somebody asked whether there should be an adjudication
system. I think that, broadly speaking, it is the office of the
Leader of the House. It is our job to make sure that ministers
give faithful, honest and appropriate answers and that anything
that needs to be chased up can be chased up. The most recent example
I had involved Bernard Jenkin. It was slightly complicated because
the information was not held by the Department for Health but
by the local ambulance trust. Understandably, the Member felt
that if he could issue an FOI request to the ambulance trust the
Department of Health could get the information for him even though
there is an arm's length between the two. In the end we managed
to sort out the information for him. I think that is the kind
of role that the office of the Leader of the House should play.
Q167 Chairman: You will know that
the House of Lords regularly publishes a list of those questions
that have not been answered. Although I do not think we would
want to implement an identical practice because of the volume
of questions in the Commons, if we considered some sort of publication,
maybe on a quarterly basis, would you welcome it?
Chris Bryant: I am agnostic about
it. If hon Members think it would be helpful it might be possible
to do it, perhaps not in written form but online.
Q168 Chairman: Why not in written
form?
Chris Bryant: Only because of
the volume of paperwork that we already publish. The House publishes
a great deal of paperwork. That might lead to some Luddism, without
meaning it in a pejorative sense. I am not entirely sure what
the real value would be. Ministers know the position. We monitor
pretty closely each department to see where there are real problems.
If there are lots of questions on Africa in a particular week
and the responsible minister is not able to answer those questions
there may be a temporary difficulty, but if there are longer-term
issues the Leader of the House will speak to the secretary of
state.
Q169 Mrs James: I go back to questions
I asked earlier about late answers to questions. Would you welcome
a sessional assessment of departmental performance to ensure questions
were answered promptly? What do you think would be the impact
of such a document?
Chris Bryant: We pretty much do
that now. There is just one difficulty which I think the EPC system
will ease for us. PIMS is not very accurate. For example, PIMS
came up with a number for the questions before Prorogation that
lapsed which was much larger than the figure I believe to be accurate.
I am slightly hesitant about the figures. Whether or not a question
has been answered is not readily identifiable through PIMS.
Q170 Mrs James: Are you confident
that the quality of answers would be maintained if the speed of
reply became a department's priority?
Chris Bryant: The concern of a
minister is whether it answers the question and is accurate, whether
it tells not just the truth but the whole truth and nothing but
the truth and whether in any sense it could be misleading because
it points in a wrong direction. There was one question that I
answered inaccurately and had to be corrected. Often ministers
are entirely reliant on the facts that are put in front of them
by their civil servants.
Q171 John Hemming: I think it is
known that I am concerned about the issue of unsatisfactory answers.
Generally this means the occasions when people do not answer the
question. I did a round robin test of different departments by
asking them about red boxes. In itself it was a relatively trivial
question, but it identified that some departments answered the
question and others avoided it. When you compare and contrast
that with freedom of information there is an appeals process under
that mechanism but no formal appeals process for written parliamentary
questions. If you really want to get an answer and people will
try to resist it the trick is to ask a written parliamentary question
and a freedom of information question. If the WPQ does not provide
the information you can take the freedom of information through
the appeals process which is subject to deadlines and timing.
What would you regard as an unsatisfactory answer to a question?
Chris Bryant: To make the position
clear in relation to freedom of information, if the department
has the information and it knows that it will have to give it
under a FOI request it should give it in a parliamentary answer—full
stop.
Q172 John Hemming: But they do not.
Chris Bryant: They should.
Q173 John Hemming: How do you make
them do it?
Chris Bryant: But there is a difference
between that and the situation where they do not hold it but other
agencies do. I have written FOI requests to my local police force
since I have been a minister to find out statistics, facts and
figures and so on, so I am quite conscious that there is a sharp
distinction. I am closer to being atheistic than agnostic on the
issue of having an adjudication process to decide whether or not
a question has been adequately answered. I think that in the end
ministers and the government are accountable to the electorate
when it comes to a general election.
Q174 John Hemming: You are quite
happy to have a system where if you are a citizen you can appeal
through freedom of information for a failure to answer a question
but basically if they do not answer a written parliamentary question
that is just tough?
Chris Bryant: An MP also has the
same right as a member of the public. On top of that, the MP has
the opportunity orally to question a minister in the Chamber and
try to get an adjournment debate on an individual issue. I have
already answered three adjournment debates on parliamentary matters
to do with correspondence with ministers, questions and so on.
Q175 John Hemming: You say you can
try to get an adjournment debate but you do not necessarily get
it. You can try to raise business questions and there is a higher
probability that you will be called. But you feel that it is entirely
reasonable to have a system of government where the powers of
members of the legislature to obtain factual information from
the executive are weaker than those of an ordinary citizen?
Chris Bryant: They are not weaker
because they have exactly the same powers as an ordinary citizen.
On top of that they can exercise a series of other powers. What
I am hesitant about is that even if that is not the best of all
possible worlds I do not see how you can create a better one because
I am not sure what adjudication system you have. Even if you had
a system whereby a Member could say he was unhappy with a previous
answer and therefore he would ask another question the enticement
would be for every single question should end up becoming that
kind of question. I do not think that would provide greater truth
for Members.
Q176 Chairman: You made a very interesting
statement a moment ago on which we would all agree. You said that
if ministers held the information they should always give the
same information in answer to a question as they would to a freedom
of information request. I think there is evidence that that is
not happening. The ministerial guidance or code refers to the
key elements in a minister's job of openness and accountability.
I think that it refers to debate but not written questions. Do
you think there is a case for putting this beyond doubt by having
a reference to written questions and saying that ministers should
always give whatever information is in their possession?
Chris Bryant: I have a desperate
hope that I am about to be handed a copy of the ministerial code
of conduct from which I shall be able to provide a complete and
adequate answer in a timely fashion, but I do not think I am in
that position. I will just have to busk it by giving my understanding
of the position. If I am incorrect I shall write to you. My understanding
is that there is an expectation written into the code. The ministerial
code refers to "all dealings with Parliament", so it
does not differentiate between one form of dealing and another.
If you are asked a question in the House in the middle of a debate
you should be helpful, honest and accurate, just as you should
be in answering a written parliamentary question.
Q177 John Hemming: How do you enforce
that?
Chris Bryant: There is an assumption
that we are all honest. I think that in politics that is a good
premise from which to start. As to whether or not ministers have
been adequate, enforcement is through the electoral system, that
is, the ballot box.
Q178 John Hemming: In essence, you
are saying that if departments through their ministers refuse
to answer written questions it is up to the electorate to chuck
them out at the next election?
Chris Bryant: If a minister has
misled the House either in a written question or in any other
way—
Q179 John Hemming: I am not talking
about misleading the House but just not answering questions. Refusing
to answer a question is not misleading; it is just saying, "I
am not going to tell you."
Chris Bryant: I look through the
answer book every day. An awful lot of answers are provided. I
know that we are focusing on those areas where Members are not
satisfied with the answers they have received and that sometimes
a question is worded in a way that seeks to trip up a minister
rather than necessarily to elucidate the world. In those moments
when ministers catch a whiff of politics in the air the temptation
is to answer with politics.
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