Written parliamentary questions

Summary

Written Parliamentary Questions (WPQs) have long been an important scrutiny tool for Members of Parliament. In the context of significant interest from colleagues in WPQs, and concerns about the impact of rising numbers of questions, including on the timeliness and quality of government responses, we have carried out this wholesale review of the WPQs system.

The growth in the number of WPQs in this Parliament has been pronounced, with the total number doubling between 2024 and 2025. This has placed the system under significant strain. We are concerned that those Members who make restrained and focused use of the WPQs system for their parliamentary work are being adversely affected by a small number of colleagues submitting disproportionate numbers of questions, which could be construed as an abuse of the system. We therefore urge all colleagues to consider carefully the trade-off between the quality of WPQ responses they receive and the quantity they submit, as well as the cost to the public purse, with each WPQ costing the government on average £219.

We conclude that the use of WPQs should be in line with their core purpose as set out in Erskine May: to seek information which cannot easily be obtained from public sources, or to press for action. They should be seen as one tool among the many available to Members, and we encourage colleagues to consider where other tools might better achieve their aims, and to seek advice on this from the Table Office.

WPQs are proceedings in Parliament, and consequently must always be initiated by a Member. As the right to submit WPQs belongs to elected Members alone, it follows that Members’ staff should only be submitting questions on behalf of their Member and on their instruction. To reinforce this principle, hard copy WPQ submissions require a Member’s wet signature, and we recommend that a digital equivalent be required in the form of a Member’s individual approval for each question submitted by their staff.

Currently, there is a limit of 20 WPQs per Member per sitting day for e-tabling. On balance, it is our view that this limit remains appropriate, but it is important that it is treated as a limit that may be hit on occasion, rather than a target to achieve or an allowance to be routinely exhausted. The number of WPQs submitted is not a measure of how hard a Member works for their constituents. The system would quickly be overwhelmed if colleagues were to routinely seek to exhaust their allotment, and we may need to consider introducing a lower limit should this situation develop.

Conversely, there is no limit on the number of WPQs a Member can submit during recess periods. It is our view that this is an anomaly. We accordingly recommend that a limit of 20 WPQs per Member should be imposed for e-tabling in recess periods of up to one full calendar week in length. The limit, to apply across the whole recess, should be increased by 10 for each additional full calendar week. We also note that, in longer recesses, there will be a particularly long gap before questions are answered. Colleagues may wish to consider other options, such as ministerial correspondence, which might lead to a swifter response.

Named day questions, which provide a route to an exceptionally urgent answer to a pressing question, remain invaluable to colleagues. However, the system should be simplified to reflect this purpose with these questions renamed ‘priority’ questions and answers automatically expected three working days after tabling (provided that day is a sitting day). A facility in MemberHub when submitting priority questions should remind colleagues that ordinary questions can receive fuller answers in a less urgent timeframe and invite the Member to make an informed decision as to whether a priority question is appropriate in the circumstances.

We took evidence on processes relating to WPQs within the Table Office. We echo the gratitude that many of our colleagues placed on the record to the Table Office team for their work in providing a valuable service to Members. We also heard some criticism of some practices, and accordingly we encourage the Table Office to continue to promote best practice and engage with Members’ feedback.

We set out to review the rules of order for WPQs: on this, we conclude that they continue to effectively serve the core purpose of WPQs as a tool “to obtain information or press for action”. We particularly consider the rule of factual basis, which was raised with us by colleagues, but it is our view that the generally “permissive” approach the Table Office seeks to take to factual basis continues to represent the best approach.

‘Carding’ is the system by which the Table Office indicates to a Member that a discussion is required before a particular WPQ can be tabled. We consider it an effective way of resolving queries about the rules of order for questions, as set down by the House and implemented by the Table Office, but we recommend a new system to require Members with 20 unresolved ‘cards’ to address them before submitting new questions, to avoid creating a backlog in the system. We recommend that the modernised terms ‘query’ and ‘querying’ replace ‘card’ and ‘carding’ to improve the accessibility of procedural language.

To serve our dual aims of increasing consistency of approach and enabling the Table Office to better focus on the most urgent matters at certain times of the sitting day, such as advising Members on motions and amendments for the next day’s Order Paper, we recommend that the cut-off times for same-day e-tabling of questions be changed to 4pm on Mondays to Thursdays, and remain at 2.30pm on Fridays. Where Members need to respond to an urgent or developing matter, we note that it remains possible—exceptionally—to table a question in hard copy by going to the Table Office in person up until the rise of the House. We reassert our predecessor committee’s view that the Table Office requires discretion to hold over some ordinary WPQs to the following day, and should continue to exercise this discretion where necessary, on an exceptional basis.

Moreover, to increase clarity and reflect the expectations that drive our sessional departmental performance monitoring work, we recommend that the ‘date for answer’ published alongside WPQs should be replaced with a ‘deadline for answer’, with the current practice of setting an earliest date for responses ended. This new deadline should be the first sitting day that is five working days from tabling for an ordinary question, and three working days from tabling for a priority question.

We reflect on how the work of our predecessor committees in reporting on departmental performance in answering WPQs is established as an important scrutiny function performed on behalf of the House. We will continue it. In light of our proposals, which aim to make the WPQs system more sustainable, our expectations of the government to meet our performance targets and consistently provide full and frank responses to WPQs will only grow.

We considered specific areas where colleagues had concerns about government responses. We welcome the Leader of the House’s overarching message about releasing information with the aim of being helpful to Members – and specifically recommend as follows:

• that each government department review its practices in relation to grouping questions, with the principle that questions should be grouped sparingly and all questions in a group should always be individually addressed within the combined response;
• that the Leader of the House draw the attention of departmental ministers to the requirements that references to external information in WPQ responses must be provided in an “easily comprehensible” format and with relevant extracts, not just hyperlinks;
• that the Leader of the House remind departmental ministers of the requirement to be explicit in answers where requested information cannot be released and give a clear reason for this; and
• that the Leader of the House arranges for his office and departmental parliamentary teams to communicate proactively on the scope of government ‘blocks’ on particular subjects.

We compared the WPQs system with the system of freedom of information (FOI) requests. As WPQs serve the vital constitutional function of government accountability to Parliament, they must be treated by the government with at least equal seriousness to FOI requests. We recommend that the Leader of the House reinforce with departmental FOI and parliamentary teams the principle that departments must ensure they never withhold from a WPQ response information that is releasable under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 – and indeed should sometimes go further in WPQ responses than is required under that Act, given the primacy of the constitutional principle of government accountability to Parliament.

In order to enhance transparency, we recommend that a public-facing dashboard, hosted on the parliamentary website, be introduced to facilitate wider scrutiny of departmental performance. This would cover the same data we currently track on departmental performance, but would be updated monthly and be available for the public to see how each department is performing.

The potential impacts of the rise in the use of artificial intelligence on the WPQs system were raised with us throughout the inquiry. We consider that where AI speeds up the processing of WPQs it is to be welcomed as a way of smoothing Members’ experience of the system and making more efficient use of public resources. Where AI is used as a drafting aid, either of a question or of an answer, it is vital that Members and ministers respectively retain full responsibility for the content.

Ultimately, we set out in this report measures which seek to create a lower-quantity, higher-quality WPQs system through targeted interventions. We acknowledge, however, that the system remains in a precarious position and it would not take a great increase in numbers to overwhelm it. We therefore invite colleagues to support us in achieving this aim through their own actions when considering tabling WPQs. As part of this, we recommend that Members and their staff take up the Table Office’s training offer, and that the Table Office work to promote it more widely.

We recommend that the Leader of the House draw this report to the attention of departmental ministers, and bring forward a motion to give the House the opportunity to endorse the report and our recommendations. In the meantime, we will continue our regular scrutiny of departmental performance in responding to WPQs in a timely manner.

1 Introduction

Our inquiry

1. Written Parliamentary Questions (WPQs) have long been a vital scrutiny tool for Members of Parliament. In the present Parliament, the use of WPQs has increased significantly, with 131,447 tabled in the 2024–26 session. This shows the value of WPQs to our colleagues in carrying out their parliamentary duties, but also points to challenges for the WPQs system. The importance colleagues place upon WPQs has also been reflected in the concerns raised prior to the launch of this inquiry, including in correspondence to this committee and our predecessors and in points of order on the floor of the House.¹

2. Since 2009, the Procedure Committee has held regular inquiries into the performance of government departments in answering WPQs in a timely fashion. In addition to continuing this vital ongoing scrutiny work, on which we will publish a separate report in due course covering departmental performance in the 2024–26 session, we decided that it was time to give broader consideration to the WPQs system.

3. To that end, we launched this inquiry on 24 November 2025, with the aim of conducting an in-depth review of the WPQs system at all stages. We set the following terms of reference for our inquiry:

• What is the purpose and value of a Written Parliamentary Question, and what do Members of Parliament (or their staff) use them for? Has this changed over time?
• What is the interaction between Written Parliamentary Questions and the Freedom of Information Act 2000? Are there any other recent changes that have impacted on the ability of MPs to gain access to the same, or similar, information via other methods?
• What is the purpose behind the distinction between ‘Named Day’ and ‘Ordinary’ Written Parliamentary Questions and is that distinction still necessary?
• Are the limits on the number of Written Parliamentary Questions that Members of Parliament can submit on any given day appropriate? Are they comparable with the rules in place in other legislatures (both within the UK and internationally)?
• Are the internal House of Commons processes and procedures for processing and dealing with Written Parliamentary Questions working effectively and efficiently? What changes, if any, may be needed to drive improvements?
• Are the processes and procedures for processing and dealing with Written Parliamentary Questions in departments working effectively and efficiently? What impact, if any, have these processes and procedures had on the quality and content of responses?

4. We received 26 written evidence submissions, which are listed and linked at the end of this report. We held a survey for Members of Parliament to which we received 30 responses. A thematic summary of these responses is appended to this report. In addition, we undertook a visit to France on 24–25 February 2026 to gain a broader understanding of how the WPQs system operates in the Assemblée Nationale as an international comparison.

5. We also heard oral evidence from a range of colleagues and experts:

• on 15 and 22 April 2026, from Alex Burghart MP, on behalf of HM Official Opposition, and Wendy Chamberlain MP, on behalf of the Liberal Democrat frontbench;
• on 20 May 2026, from experts in freedom of information and transparency, Dr Ben Worthy, Jenna Corderoy and Alex Parsons,² from Warren Seddon from the Information Commissioner’s Office, and from Clare Brunton and Eirian Walsh Atkins from the Cabinet Office;
• on 3 June 2026, from Ben Obese-Jecty MP, Charlie Dewhirst MP, Edward Morello MP, Tessa Munt MP, Martin Wrigley MP and Neil Duncan-Jordan MP, backbench colleagues who wished to share their views with us;
• on 10 June 2026, from Dr Farrah Bhatti and Nick Beech, from the House Administration; and
• on 24 June 2026, from Rt Hon Sir Alan Campbell MP, Leader of the House of Commons.

6. We would like to express our gratitude to those colleagues who have taken an interest in the inquiry and contributed their views, and to both those inside and outside the House of Commons who have assisted the inquiry by lending their expertise. We thank them all for their time and assistance.

2 Submission of WPQs

Quantity of WPQs

Background

7. A very much larger number of WPQs has been asked in this Parliament than has been the norm in recent years. Figure 1 below shows that, in every month of 2025, the number of WPQs was greater than in the same month in 2024. Figure 2 shows that, taking a longer view, the present Parliament is exceptional in terms of the number of WPQs asked, and that those numbers are continuing to increase over time.

Figure 1: Number of WPQs tabled monthly in 2024 and 2025, based on data in Parliamentary search. Note: the general election meant no WPQs could be tabled between 30 May 2024 and 4 July 2024.

Figure 2: Number of WPQs tabled annually from 2018 to 2025, based on data in Parliamentary search.

8. It is reasonable to expect to see fluctuations in the quantity of WPQs over time, including an increase at the start of a Parliament. The specific circumstances of the start of this Parliament, which saw a change in government and 335 Members of Parliament elected for the first time, would naturally have an impact on WPQ numbers compared to the previous Parliament.

9. However, it must be borne in mind that there is a fundamental trade-off at the heart of the WPQ system between the quantity of WPQs and the quality of the responses to them. WPQs are a vital tool available to backbench and opposition frontbench MPs to aid them in their parliamentary duties – but Members should note that they are only one tool among many.

10. Moreover, we note that while cost alone should not be determinative, each WPQ comes with a cost to the public purse. In August 2026, the Leader of the House estimated that answering each WPQ costs the government an average of £219. This means that in 2025 the government spent £17.7 million answering 80,810 WPQs.³ The House Administration also incurs significant costs including those associated with processing, reviewing and editing, publishing and printing, and indexing each WPQ.

11. In the course of our inquiry, it has become clear to us that some Members submit a disproportionately large number of WPQs compared to their peers. In the 2024–26 session, the top 10 Members submitting WPQs (1.5% of MPs) accounted for 21% of the total number of WPQs submitted, while the top 100 Members (15% of MPs) accounted for 63% of that figure. Indeed, during the 2026 summer recess, seven Members submitted over 50% of WPQs. A number of colleagues identified a similar concern in their responses to our survey, and noted that they have found there to be an inverse relationship between quantity and quality. One said simply that “if MPs want better answers they need to reduce volume”. Another noted that, while they submit WPQs “sparingly” so as not to “overburden” civil servants and ministers, they feel “too many WPQs are being submitted” by some.⁴

Purpose of WPQs

14. Erskine May gives the purpose of a parliamentary question as “to obtain information or press for action”.⁵ This means that WPQs are a tool for finding information that is not otherwise readily available (including with the assistance of the House of Commons Library), and for scrutiny in the form of urging the government to take a particular action.

15. In practice, questions are tabled for other reasons. For example, one Member told us that they submit questions because they “enjoy finding out a bit more about things that look interesting”.⁶ This is the kind of purpose that WPQs are not intended for and that research by a Member’s staff or the Commons Library would be better suited to. We are also concerned to hear that the number of WPQs submitted is being used as a performance metric for MPs’ relative level of activity, including at times by colleagues as a way of “demonstrating action”.⁷ This has been reflected by a number of colleagues promoting graphics highlighting statistics such as the number of WPQs asked as an indication of how effective they are as an MP.

16. In his oral evidence to us in December 2025, the Leader of the House highlighted that sometimes focus on the quantity of WPQs is overtaking focus on their value, pointing to:

a sense of, ‘Look at me, I’ve put in all these PQs. I must be a really good MP.’ I can tell you that when that happens your neighbour gets it in the neck because people say, ‘Why have they put in 2,000 PQs and you haven’t?’ or whatever.⁸

17. The quality of WPQs and the practical value colleagues gain for their parliamentary work by asking them and getting a response to them are more important issues than the number of WPQs a Member submits. As one colleague put it in their response to our survey:

The number going in is too high and many questions are low quality as they are designed to signal an MP has asked about an issue rather than to get a useful answer.⁹

Role of Members’ staff and third parties

19. Members’ staff are employed to support their Members across the range of their parliamentary duties. Each Member will run their office differently, and it is reasonable and to be expected that Members’ staff will provide administrative support with the tabling of questions.

20. However, the evidence we have heard suggests that the role of Members’ staff has gone beyond this in several instances. For example, one Member told us in oral evidence that:

First of all, the Committee should have called my chief of staff and not me, because they do most of the written questions, so we had a long discussion before this.¹⁰

21. The Principal Clerk of the Table Office emphasised in oral evidence the nature of WPQs as a proceeding in Parliament and the consequent importance of them being initiated by Members:

[WPQs] are a proceeding in Parliament, in the same way that a debate is a proceeding in Parliament. Consequently, questions should be initiated only by Members themselves. Procedure Committees in previous years have been quite robust on that point; it is important to the integrity of the questions system that the initiation of questions rest on the responsibility exercised by elected Members in their personal duties as elected officials.¹¹

22. Our predecessor committee noted that this point had been raised with them, as well as with their predecessors. In words that remain relevant today, they took the view that:

Although we appreciate that individual Members may adopt their own, quite legitimate, arrangements for the involvement of staff in parliamentary questions, written parliamentary questions are proceedings in Parliament and as such should only be initiated by Members.¹²

23. A separate, albeit related, issue we encountered in the inquiry was the role of third parties in initiating some questions. For example, one written submission highlighted that draft WPQs are being provided to Members by the university sector as a way of recording research impact.¹³ In addition, one colleague told us that they use WPQs to put constituents’ questions to the government and return the answers to the constituents, and that they do not see it as their role to exercise discretion in deciding to table the questions.¹⁴

25. To provide a safeguard that WPQs are submitted on the initiative and authority of a Member, hard-copy WPQ submissions have always required the Member’s wet signature to be accepted for tabling. Since the introduction of MemberHub, there has been no equivalent safeguard in place to ensure that the Member has initiated and approved e-tabled questions, although there is a function that enables Members, at their discretion, to require questions submitted by their staff to be approved by them before being submitted.

Limits on e-tabling

27. At present, each Member can electronically table up to 20 WPQs per sitting day. For those exceptional circumstances where this limit is not sufficient, for instance as a result of a pressing and high-profile development in a Member’s constituency, Members can at their discretion table further questions in hard copy in the Table Office. Where Members do table large numbers of WPQs in hard copy, it is advisable to discuss this in advance with the Table Office to agree a timely approach to processing those questions without detriment to other Members.

28. Although the House of Commons is not the only legislature to adopt a relatively unrestrictive approach to limits, its overall approach to limits is among the more permissive. In contrast, the House of Lords applies two limits to its members—of six questions per day and 12 questions per week—regardless of the method of tabling.¹⁵ During our visit to Paris, we learnt that, in 2015, the French Assemblée Nationale introduced a limit of 52 questions per member across a parliamentary session (as a parliamentary session in that legislature is roughly a year, the limit is around one question per member per week).

29. We considered the government’s suggestion in its written evidence that we “consider whether the current limits are appropriate in light of the cost of WPQs, and whether that is a proportionate use of taxpayer money”.¹⁶ However, we heard little evidence specifically relating to the limit of 20 WPQs per Member for e-tabling on each sitting day. Indeed, the majority (60%) of respondents to our Member survey told us that the current limits are “about right”.¹⁷

30. In a system where a large proportion of WPQs are submitted by a small number of MPs, it is unclear whether changing the MemberHub limit on sitting days would have any significant impact on numbers. Edward Morello MP made a similar point, telling us: “You could lower the limit of questions, but I do not know how many MPs are actually hitting that.”¹⁸

31. There is clearly a balance to be struck between maintaining a WPQs system that is functional and sustainable for all colleagues whilst facilitating legitimate and welcome scrutiny of government. In line with this, the Green Party MPs told us that they:

[ … ] have not found problems with the current limits. It is important that the system is not overwhelmed or abused, and that MPs have enough WPQs to be able to undertake effective scrutiny.¹⁹

32. Rt Hon Sir John Hayes CBE MP echoed this, telling us:

It makes sense to limit tabling to 20 questions a day, and I would not seek to lower or raise that number. There are occasions that I have sought information using identical questions across all departments on a time-sensitive issue, but as this can be spread over two days I see no reason to change the established system.²⁰

Recess arrangements

Quantity and limits

34. We separately considered the arrangements for WPQs in recess periods. Questions can be submitted during a recess, but are not tabled or published until a ‘printing day’ at the end of the recess. Any questions submitted are therefore answered following the recess.

35. Our predecessor committee recommended in its 2011 report—when e-tabling was relatively new, and the daily quota for each Member was five questions—that any questions e-tabled during a recess should count towards the limit for the next sitting day.²¹ This recommendation was endorsed by the House on 13 October 2011.²² This principle continues to govern the submission of WPQs during recesses of less than one week.

36. However, the House’s endorsement of the 2011 report also disapplied this general principle for recesses of one week or longer.²³ There were sound reasons for this in a context where the default position would otherwise have been for a limit of just five questions per Member to apply to longer recess periods, for example to the whole summer recess. This would not have provided for an appropriate level of parliamentary scrutiny in the longest recesses. It therefore remains the case at present that, unlike on sitting days, there is no limit on e-tabling of WPQs during recess periods of longer than one week, with the practical result that Members can submit an unlimited number of WPQs during such recesses. During recesses of less than one week, including for example the short November recess and bank holiday weekends, the arrangement remains that any questions e-tabled are counted towards the limit of 20 on the first subsequent sitting day.

37. Recesses are an area where the use of the WPQs system appears to have recently undergone a particularly notable change, with Figure 3 below showing the dramatic increase in the number of WPQs submitted in the summer recesses in 2025 and 2026 compared to previous years. This represents a significant shift in how colleagues are using the long summer recess.

Figure 3: A graph showing the number of WPQs submitted during the summer recess in each year, 2020–26

38. In addition, the limit on the number of WPQs that can be e-tabled on a sitting day has since been increased from five to 20.²⁴ This has naturally increased the limits for recess periods of less than one week, to a level that we consider satisfactory.

39. We heard, however, over the course of our inquiry, that there are strong reasons for considering a limit in longer recesses. For example, Edward Morello MP told us that:

Removing the ability to table an unlimited amount during recess—so having a limit in recess—might be more helpful so that you do not create a massive backlog.²⁵

40. The government also referred in its written evidence to this potential for a backlog to emerge, and noted that, with some departments returning from recesses to 200–300 questions, it “can have a knock on effect on the wider performance of the department”.²⁶ We note that answering large numbers of questions that were tabled during a recess period, perhaps several weeks prior, can subtract from the government’s capacity to respond to more current scrutiny by parliamentarians. The lag between a question being submitted early in a recess and being sent to the department for answer at the end of the recess (which can be as long as from mid-July to the end of August) makes the exercise of restraint by Members particularly important.

43. In practice, this recommendation would have meant a limit of 70 WPQs for the 2026 summer recess, a limit of 20 for the 2026 Whitsun recess, and a limit of 30 for the 2025 Christmas recess.

44. We note that, for those truly exceptional cases where developing events mean that a Member needs to submit a large number of WPQs during a recess, the ability to table unlimited numbers in hard copy remains provided that each WPQ has a Member’s wet signature. We would, however, expect colleagues to exercise good judgement and restraint in using this facility sparingly, and to note wherever possible our advice in paragraph 27 on prior engagement with the Table Office. As it remains the case that questions are not tabled, published or sent for answer until printing day, it is for colleagues to judge the value in this action. The ability to table unlimited numbers of questions in hard copy is provided to ensure colleagues are not placed in a position where they cannot respond to developing events; it should not become a loophole for routinely circumventing any existing or new limits. We also advise colleagues that submitting a large number of questions close to printing day is particularly draining on resources and should be avoided wherever possible, as part of exercising discretion and restraint, to avoid detriment to other Members.

45. As noted above in paragraph 34, questions submitted during a recess cannot be answered until the House returns. One alternative mechanism that colleagues may wish to consider in situations such as the above—which in longer recesses is likely to lead to a faster and more productive response—is pursuing the matter via ministerial correspondence.

Types of WPQ

47. There are two types of WPQ, and they differ only in the timescales on which an answer is expected. Responses to ‘ordinary’ WPQs are expected within five working days of tabling. In contrast, responses to ‘named day’ WPQs are expected by the date named by the tabling Member: the earliest, and most common, date set is three working days after tabling.²⁷

48. ‘Named day’ written questions were introduced in 1972, following the report of the Select Committee on Parliamentary Questions.²⁸ The committee’s recommendation that they be introduced came with the stipulation that:

It is to be hoped that Members would not overload the ‘priority’ system for written Questions by the indiscriminate marking of their Questions [as named day questions].²⁹

49. Our predecessor committee concluded in 2002 that “this hope rapidly proved unfulfilled”.³⁰ Since then, following the endorsement by the House of a recommendation of our predecessor committee, each Member has been limited to five named day questions per sitting day.³¹ Where questions are tabled electronically, the five named day questions are part of the overall limit of 20; they are not an additional quota.

50. We note that the government suggests in its written evidence that we review “whether this two-tier system remains necessary or if it could be simplified”, setting out its view that this “could potentially streamline administrative processes within departments and improve overall clarity and certainty for Members”.³² In this context, we sought evidence on how Members use named day questions today.

51. Alex Burghart MP, on behalf of HM Official Opposition, told us that “there are times when one just wants an answer quickly – because perhaps there is a parliamentary debate coming up, or you have got oral questions”.³³ Ben Obese-Jecty MP echoed the point about faster responses being useful in preparation for oral questions.³⁴

52. We also heard that wider use of named day questions is made, particularly as Members do not feel confident of a reasonably quick answer to ordinary questions. For example, Wendy Chamberlain MP, giving evidence on behalf of the Liberal Democrat frontbench, told us that:

We should encourage colleagues to think about [named day questions] as the exception rather than the rule, but some of the challenges that we have both found mean that there is probably an increasing number of named day questions emerging.³⁵

53. Charlie Dewhirst MP similarly drew a link between slow replies and the prevalence of named day questions:

I think that is why you get so many named day questions and everything else – because people feel they are not going get an answer if they just put it in without that facility.³⁶

54. In his oral evidence, the Leader of the House acknowledged that “there will certainly be examples” of poor response times driving up the number of named day questions.³⁷

55. We have found there to be a weight of evidence therefore that having a second ‘track’ of WPQs—for those rare cases where an exceptionally urgent answer is required—remains an important tool for parliamentary scrutiny that is valued by colleagues.

56. There is, however, inevitably a trade-off between the speed and quality of answers. Colleagues are entitled to expect fuller answers to ordinary questions given the reduced time pressure the relevant department is under to respond to the question, and Members should therefore consider making greater use of ordinary questions for this purpose.

57. Named day WPQs continue to account for a significant proportion of all WPQs, although we note that they fell as a proportion of questions asked from 29% in 2024 to 19% in 2025.³⁸ We also note that some colleagues submit only named day questions, and some use up their quota of named day questions before submitting any ordinary questions.³⁹ It is our view that urgency alone does not explain the use of named day WPQs in this way.

3 Processing of WPQs in the House

62. The Table Office comprises a team of clerks and operational staff within the House Administration who provide a range of functions. Its primary roles are producing the daily Order Paper and providing advice to the Speaker and Members to support the functioning of the Chamber. This includes advice on matters sub judice, as well as on oral questions, early day motions, other motions and amendments to motions. As part of these core functions, the Table Office also oversees applications for Adjournment and Westminster Hall debates and provides the secretariat for the Backbench Business Committee. It is alongside these matters that the Table Office is responsible for processing and sub-editing WPQs, focusing on compliance with the rules of order set down by the House.

63. Throughout the inquiry, a number of colleagues noted the value of the service the Table Office provides to Members in supporting us to submit orderly questions. Tan Dhesi MP told us that “the support provided by the Table Office has been consistently professional, constructive, and of high value”.⁴⁰ Martin Wrigley MP said, “without them, it would be very hard work”.⁴¹ The Green Party MPs noted that the Table Office is “very helpful with suggested redrafts if a question is not in order”.⁴²

64. We heard that one of the things colleagues prize most from the Table Office is consistency. For example, Charlie Dewhirst MP told us that he has perceived there to be “a lack of consistency” in how questions are responded to by the Table Office at different times.⁴³ This was in response to a question from John Lamont MP, who noted that in one instance a question had been accepted when submitted five minutes before the deadline, but that an almost identical question had been queried when submitted, on another occasion, four days before the deadline.⁴⁴ As Rt Hon Sir John Hayes CBE MP put it, improving consistency is a matter of “best practice” being “extended”.⁴⁵

65. Alex Burghart MP told us that HM Official Opposition “have a good working relationship with the Table Office” but nonetheless identified some areas for improvement.⁴⁶ The most significant of these was about the ‘carding’ process which we explore in greater detail in paragraphs 75–86. We acknowledge these concerns, particularly given the important role WPQs serve for opposition frontbenchers in discharging their scrutiny function. These concerns indicate in our view the importance of work to improve consistency of approach, which we recognise is challenging in the context of increasing numbers.

Rules of order for questions

68. Erskine May sets out that “the Speaker is the final authority as to the admissibility of questions”, but “the Speaker’s responsibility for questions is limited to their compliance with the rules of the House”.⁴⁷ It is under the authority of the Speaker that the Table Office reviews, and, where necessary, sub-edits questions to ensure conformity to the rules of the House before they are tabled.⁴⁸

69. In oral evidence, the Principal Clerk of the Table Office told us that “the only time [the Table Office] would say to a Member or a staffer that a question could not be tabled is if it were clearly disorderly within the rules of order”.⁴⁹ Chapter 22 of Erskine May gives an account of these rules of order. For the benefit of better informing colleagues, we provide this non-exhaustive summary of the principal rules as prohibiting:

• seeking a minister’s opinion;
• questions containing arguments, expressions of opinion, inferences or imputations;
• questions containing unnecessary epithets, or rhetorical, controversial, ironical or offensive expressions;
• reflections on the character or conduct of the Sovereign, members of the royal family, Members of either House of Parliament, or judges of superior courts of the United Kingdom (which should be reserved for a substantive motion);
• bringing the name of the Sovereign or influence of the Crown directly before Parliament;
• questions about certain prerogative functions of the Crown such as the grant of honours;
• questions about matters for which ministers are not officially responsible;
• questions that have already been answered, or to which an answer has been refused, in that session of Parliament (although refused questions may be asked again after three months);
• questions which criticise the decisions of either House of Parliament;
• questions about matters sub judice unless the Speaker has issued a waiver, or which reflect on the decision of a court of law; and
• questions which seek the solution of hypothetical propositions, raise questions of public policy too large to be dealt with in answer to a question, seek information on matters of history for the purpose of argument, or are trivial, vague or meaningless.⁵⁰

Factual basis

71. We carefully considered the issue of factual basis, after receiving evidence that it was a cause of concern for some colleagues. This was raised with us by HM Official Opposition and by Alicia Kearns MP.⁵¹

72. Erskine May sets out that, where facts are significant to a question, “prima facie evidence of their authenticity” may be required, and that extracts from newspapers, books or speeches are not admissible.⁵²

73. In oral evidence, the Table Office clarified that their approach is to be “as permissive as [they] can in that space”.⁵³ In practice this means that factual basis is only requested in exceptional circumstances, for example where a question would otherwise constitute an “imputation” of wrongdoing (which Erskine May explains is prohibited).⁵⁴ The example the Table Office gave us was “How much her Department has spent on funding terrorism”, and we agree that this is the kind of circumstance where it is proportionate and reasonable to ask for factual basis.⁵⁵

‘Carding’

75. A ‘card’ notification is sent to a Member by Table Office staff via the e-tabling system when one of their WPQs does not conform to the House’s rules of order for questions, or when the meaning is unclear and not easily remedied by minor editing by the Table Office clerks.⁵⁶ The Principal Clerk of the Table Office summed up the nature of ‘carding’ in oral evidence: “a card is an invitation to have a conversation to try to resolve an issue; it is not a block”.⁵⁷

76. When a question is ‘carded’, and the Member or their member of staff swiftly telephones, visits or emails the Table Office, it is often possible to address the issue and table the question in short order.⁵⁸ However, we heard from some colleagues that a ‘card’ is viewed as a challenge and can in some cases lead to a protracted back-and-forth exchange between the Table Office and a Member’s staff.⁵⁹ In these instances, the Table Office can and sometimes do determine that they can only deal with the Member directly to resolve a particular issue.

77. Tan Dhesi MP illustrated for us how ‘carding’, as an invitation to a conversation, works at its best, and we commend this description to colleagues as a model of how the system should work:

I and my team also greatly value the open-minded approach taken by Table Office staff when dealing with carded questions. In most cases, the reasons for a question being carded are well founded, and my team will either amend the wording or withdraw the question entirely. However, there are occasions where we take a different view on whether a question is orderly. In those cases, the Table Office has consistently been willing to engage in detailed discussion, consider our arguments carefully, and where appropriate, accept that a question is in order and allow it to be tabled. Equally, there are occasions where discussion leads my team to accept that the Table Office’s initial judgement was correct, or a revision is agreed. It is rare for such discussions to conclude with an unresolved disagreement, and I regard this as evidence of a confident, professional, and intellectually robust team. This willingness both to defend a position and to revise it where necessary is of significant value to Members and to the House as a whole.⁶⁰

78. The evidence we heard from colleagues on the ‘carding’ process was, however, mixed. HM Official Opposition told us that, as of May 2025, 19% of questions in the present Parliament had been ‘carded’ – a fact they told us they found “alarming”.⁶¹ They added that in their view the interpretation of the rules of order on various occasions has been “overly-restrictive”.⁶² In contrast, then FCDO minister Seema Malhotra MP told us that her department had perceived that some of the rules of order are “not being as rigidly enforced as [they have] been in the past”.⁶³ We listened carefully to these countervailing concerns and sought additional data as a result. Figure 4 below shows that rates of ‘carding’ were high at the start of this Parliament but fell significantly in 2026 compared to 2025.

Figure 4: A graph showing the number of WPQs ‘carded’ in each month in session 2024–26 (Source: Data provided by the Table Office)

79. It seems to us natural that, as in this case, the rate of ‘carding’ might increase early in a Parliament, when there are many new Members (and indeed new staff), and equally natural that it would return to lower levels after this initial peak. We are therefore reassured by the trend of cards matching this expectation, which suggests to us that the system is working proportionately and effectively.

80. The Table Office has told us, rightly, that they “are here to facilitate scrutiny”.⁶⁴ Whilst we acknowledge the understandable perception of some of our colleagues that their questions are being “blocked”, this is not the effect of a ‘card’. The role of the Table Office is limited to enforcing the rules as set by the House, exercising discretion only under the Speaker’s authority. The Table Office takes instructions on what the rules are from the House (and, where there is ambiguity, from the Speaker interpreting the House’s wishes). It should be noted that, as a result of this chain of authority, the advice given to Members and their staff by the Table Office is on the Speaker’s behalf and therefore confidential and should not be shared with those outside that Member’s parliamentary office.

81. As with the WPQs system more widely, there is variety in how colleagues choose to respond to ‘cards’. However, where a Member accumulates a large number of ‘carded’ questions, and continues to submit further questions without resolving outstanding ‘cards’, this can create a backlog whereby Table Office clerks risk being unable to process new questions submitted by other Members as their time is occupied chasing and resolving cards. Whilst we recognise that it is up to individual Members when to table questions, we do not consider it fair to all colleagues for a small minority to have a large number of unaddressed ‘cards’ creating a backlog in the system.

84. Based on the data we have examined for the number of cards per Member in the 2024–26 session, we expect that it will be rare for a Member to reach this threshold of 20 ‘cards’ pending at any one time. When it is reached, a Member can swiftly regain the ability to table WPQs by making a visit to the Table Office to address their existing ‘cards’. We anticipate that colleagues will proactively do this; the existing questions were submitted because they mattered to a Member, so that Member will want to take advice to enable them to table an orderly version of the questions that mattered to their parliamentary work.

85. Lastly, we considered the terminology of ‘cards’, which stems from the historic practice of the Table Office placing a physical ‘card’ in a Member’s pigeonhole to notify them that there was a query about a WPQ submitted in their name. This practice has been discontinued in favour of electronic notification.

Cut-off times for same-day e-tabling

87. WPQs to be tabled on a sitting day must be submitted before the rise of the House. However, since the introduction of e-tabling, consideration has been given to whether an earlier cut-off time supports the effective functioning of the system. In 2009, cut-off times were first proposed by our predecessor committee for same-day processing of questions submitted via the e-tabling system. Our predecessor committee gave as its rationale 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.⁶⁵

88. The cut-off times were originally proposed in 2009 as 7pm on Mondays and Tuesdays, 6pm on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and 2.30pm on Fridays.⁶⁶ By the time they were introduced, initially on a pilot basis in 2011, they were set at 6.30pm on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, and 2.30pm on Fridays.⁶⁷ In April 2012, after a review of the pilot by our predecessor committee, the House decided to make these cut-off times permanent.⁶⁸ Following another report from our predecessor committee, in July 2012, the House decided to change its sitting times, changing the moment of interruption on Thursdays from 6pm to 5pm.⁶⁹ In consequence of this, the Thursday cut-off time changed to 5.30pm, and the cut-off times have remained unchanged since.⁷⁰

89. In its written evidence, the Table Office invited us “to consider whether the deadlines remain appropriate”.⁷¹ We therefore took evidence on the cut-off times, and the impact any potential changes would have, both on Members and on workflow and resourcing in the Table Office.

90. Wendy Chamberlain MP, on behalf of the Liberal Democrat frontbench, noted that WPQs are not the only important matter on which Members seek a service from the Table Office in the evenings:

I am very conscious that when we have an opposition day coming up, we are back and forward with the Table Office landing our motion, and other parties are looking at amendments that they might table.⁷²

91. In a similar vein, the Acting Deputy Head of the Table Office noted in oral evidence that, in the present system, the coincidence of the WPQs e-tabling deadline with the drafting and finalising of the following day’s Order Paper and managing debate deadlines means that clerks can end up “trying to do three extremely serious things that Members care about at the same moment”.⁷³ The Principal Clerk of the Table Office added that outside of the normal working day, the Table Office has significantly fewer colleagues than are available during core working hours, and they “are typically focusing on more urgent needs around Chamber business and the Order Paper”.⁷⁴

92. Alex Burghart MP, on behalf of HM Official Opposition, stated that his primary concern would be avoiding a situation where a Member “could not start the named day process when significant things are going on in the Chamber”, when the House is still sitting in the evening.⁷⁵ We note that this situation is avoided by the Table Office remaining open for hard-copy tabling until the rise of the House.

93. The current late cut-off times leave the Table Office very little time to thoroughly and consistently review each submitted WPQ. As we noted in paragraph 64, consistency of approach is particularly important to Members in their experience of the Table Office. We are confident that the Table Office will continue to seek to improve this, but we are keen that the system supports them in doing this.

94. We considered the extent to which changes to staffing arrangements in the Table Office might address these concerns. However, an increase in evening capacity would be costly to the House, and we are conscious that it would be producing extra capacity that would at times not be needed. We are not persuaded that this would be an effective or proportionate use of public money.

97. Our predecessor committee’s 2011 report noted that the Table Office needs, occasionally, to exercise its discretion to hold over some ordinary WPQs to the following day when it becomes particularly busy. It said:

The Table Office currently exercises its discretion on occasion to hold over some ordinary written questions to the following day on particularly busy days. We would hope that this would only occur on very rare occasions but we recognise the need for this discretion and we support the continuation of its use when absolutely essential.⁷⁶

98. In oral evidence, the Principal Clerk of the Table Office told us that the sort of circumstance in which this discretion would be exercised was “if [the Table Office] experience[s] a really unprecedented day and [it] cannot process questions before staff are off home for the evening, often well after the rise of the House”.⁷⁷ With this having happened on only one occasion in her time in post, we are satisfied that this discretion is being exercised appropriately sparingly.

100. When WPQs are printed and published, a ‘date for answer’ is given. This date is the earliest date on which a question can be answered, but it can readily be perceived by Members and others as a deadline for answer. For ordinary questions, this date is set as two sitting days after tabling. However, the House has endorsed the proposition that responses to ordinary questions should be provided within five working days of tabling to be considered on time.⁷⁸

101. For named day questions (which we recommended in paragraph 59 be renamed ‘priority’ questions), this date is set as the named day. With this date now to be set automatically as the first sitting day that is at least three working days from the date of tabling, we expect that this is when they should be answered.

102. At present, this tension creates what the Table Office refers to in its written evidence as a “pretence” that ordinary questions will be answered after two sitting days – and leads to the misleading impression in the daily ‘questions tabled’ booklet that ordinary questions will be answered before their named day counterparts.⁷⁹ In addition, these published dates do not currently align with our sessional monitoring of departmental performance in responding to questions in a timely manner, where we set a threshold of 85% of questions being answered ‘on time’. Responses are deemed to have been provided ‘on time’ for ordinary questions if they are provided within five working days of being tabled, and for named day questions if answers are provided by the specified date.⁸⁰

4 Government responses to WPQs

Monitoring by the Procedure Committee

104. Since 2010, the Procedure Committee has conducted regular monitoring of departmental performance in answering WPQs, following on from a recommendation of our predecessor committee in 2009.⁸¹

105. We have found this work to have a positive impact, and our targeted interventions have ensured that departments that slip below our 85% thresholds for answering each type of questions on time are given the opportunity to improve their internal processes swiftly to improve performance. Our predecessors have also worked with successive governments to ensure that the Guide to Parliamentary Work, produced by the Office of the Leader of the House of Commons,⁸² is kept up to date and revised in line with the committee’s recommendations for improving scrutiny.⁸³

Recent thematic issues with government responses to WPQs

107. We have considered in this inquiry how numbers of WPQs have increased significantly in this Parliament. The government told us in its written evidence that “such high volumes inevitably impact the ability of departments to process and answer them quickly and effectively, and on the ability of policy teams to carry out their other responsibilities”.⁸⁴ We acknowledge that this has been a pressure on government and has led to some trade-offs being made between quality and timeliness.

109. In this spirit, we have identified three specific thematic issues where we urge the government to undertake work in the short term to drive improvement: grouping of questions for answer, reference to large datasets or other external information in responses, and withholding information from responses (including a result of a ‘government block’).

Grouping of questions for response

110. The government may group several WPQs and provide a single answer to all of them. These may be several questions from the same Member about one issue, or closely related questions on a similar topic but from different Members.

111. Some colleagues have raised concerns with us that the practice of grouping questions for response has negatively affected the quality of responses, and they have suggested that this is a practice they are encountering increasingly frequently. This concern was raised with us in written evidence from colleagues across the House.⁸⁵ In particular, we heard that where this practice leads to some questions within a group not being fully addressed, it can lead to Members needing to table additional questions to obtain information – a cycle that runs against creating a more sustainable and better-functioning system.⁸⁶

112. We put these concerns to the Leader of the House when he gave oral evidence, and he told us that:

Grouping has always existed, of course, but it should not be used as an excuse for not answering a particular question, because specific inquiries from Members should be addressed in responses.⁸⁷

Reference to existing information

114. Concerns have been raised in the course of our inquiry that sometimes answers to WPQs simply point to large published datasets. We remind Members that much information is already published, and that in many cases the first place a Member should go when seeking statistical or similar information is the House of Commons Library, who have dedicated staff available to assist with such queries. Nonetheless, we recognise that there may be occasions when a WPQ is needed to elicit such information. HM Official Opposition raised particular concerns that sometimes these datasets do not contain the specific information requested in a WPQ, and that on other occasions interpreting them is a matter of finding “a needle in a haystack”.⁸⁸

115. We heard that sometimes responses have pointed Members to information that is not readily accessible, and which requires additional and substantial effort to find the specific information the Member has requested, with Members often needing the assistance of the House of Commons Library on certain points.⁸⁹ We do not consider this kind of response to be adequate.

116. Erskine May sets out that “the Speaker has also ruled that replies should be helpful and clear and not simply refer to material on an official website”.⁹⁰ This stems from a 2010 Speaker’s ruling, in response to a point of order about the practice of referring Members to websites in written answers, that:

Responses from Ministers to questions should be as helpful and clear as possible. Simply referring an hon. Member to a website is, frankly, not good enough.⁹¹

117. The Cabinet Office’s Guide to Parliamentary Work, which is published for the instruction of civil servants, under the authority of the Leader of the House, states:

If the information requested is already in the public domain, answers should refer to this and inform the Member where they can find it. However, the information referred to should be easily comprehensible and those asking a question should not be expected to analyse and interpret detailed statistical information to work out the answer to their question.

If referring to documents in the public domain, you should include the relevant extracts in your written response as well as the relevant hyperlink.⁹²

Withholding of information

120. We heard concerns from colleagues about the withholding of information in WPQ responses. These concerns included the frequency of information being withheld, the basis for information being withheld, and whether an adequate explanation is given to the Member of why information is being withheld.

121. We note that the Cabinet Office’s Guide to Parliamentary Work makes clear that, where information is omitted from a WPQ response, a reason should be given based on the permissible reasons under the Freedom of Information Act 2000:

If information is not disclosed, or fully disclosed, the draft answer should make this clear and explain the reasons in terms similar to those in the FOI Act (without resorting to explicit reference to the Act itself). For example:

‘The release of information would prejudice commercial interests.’⁹³

122. HM Official Opposition pointed us to examples of this approach not being followed.⁹⁴

Government blocks

123. Erskine May sets out that where “a Minister has refused to take the action or give the information asked for in a particular question” that question is not in order within the same session for a period of three months. This is referred to as a government block. This procedural rule requires the Table Office to determine “whether a question is inadmissible on the grounds of previous ministerial answering practices” and to do so based “solely on replies given in the same session”.⁹⁵

124. In oral evidence on behalf of HM Official Opposition, Alex Burghart MP set out some concerns with how government blocks currently work:

Often the Government blocks what we would consider to be perfectly legitimate questions. Once the Government have blocked, there is then a period when the Table Office—understandably, because of the rules—feels that it cannot allow similar questions. We often try to reframe the question in a slightly different way so that we can go again, because we feel that the obstruction was unreasonable. I would like it if the Table Office were reassured that that is okay. If the Government want to push us back again, they are at liberty to do so, but it should be the Government saying, ‘We’re not going to give you the information,’ rather than the Table Office saying, ‘You can’t have access to the information.’⁹⁶

125. We sympathise with the difficulty Mr Burghart has encountered, and we note that the Table Office also stated in its written evidence that “a better shared understanding [with the government] of the rules of order relating to ‘blocks’ on questions would also be welcome”.⁹⁷

126. We recognise that there will be occasions where the government will not be able to release information requested in a WPQ – although we hope that these will be rare. An example of where it would be appropriate to decline to release information is where doing so might prejudice national security.

127. In oral evidence, we put to the Leader of the House whether the government could reduce ambiguity and frustration for Members in this area. While not suggesting specific ways by which the government could provide further clarity on the use of blocks, he did note that:

[…] in a wider sense […] it is better to have more information out there because people are able, if necessary, to adapt their behaviour and learn the lesson that if they go down that route it is not going to get them anywhere.⁹⁸

WPQs and FOI

131. The interaction between Written Parliamentary Questions and the Freedom of Information Act 2000 is a matter this committee has considered in the past, and one that we placed a high priority on reviewing as part of this inquiry. Most particularly, we are concerned that we are continuing to hear evidence of information being released in response to FOI requests that is being withheld in response to WPQs.

132. In December 2024, an exchange between Sir Christopher Chope MP and the then Leader of the House, Rt Hon Lucy Powell MP, revealed that the government was aware of this issue and was seeking to take action to address it:

Sir Christopher Chope: “[ … ] Can you reiterate that Members of Parliament should not have to make freedom of information requests, and that the Government should give written parliamentary answers priority over freedom of information requests?”

Lucy Powell: “I agree 100%, and I have made that clear to the person, or the Department, that did not do that. Any other such cases that I receive—I think there has been more than one, actually—we will take up very strongly. We have also done a bit more training on that for the parliamentary teams, to reiterate the point that written parliamentary questions come first.”⁹⁹

133. This issue has nevertheless continued to be raised with us over the course of this inquiry. In particular, it was the predominant concern expressed in the written evidence we received from HM Official Opposition, which stated that:

The current Government is treating Hon. Members with extreme discourtesy by releasing information under the Freedom of Information Act that it refuses to give to Parliament.¹⁰⁰

134. The government recognised in its written evidence that this issue had not yet been fully addressed:

The Government recognises that there have been some inconsistencies in some departments, and the Leader of the House of Commons continues to remind departments of their obligations to disclose. The Office of the Leader of the House of Commons has worked closely with the Procedure Committee on this guidance and would welcome any further reflections the Committee has in this area.¹⁰¹

135. When pressed in oral evidence on the nature of these “inconsistencies”, the Leader of the House, Rt Hon Sir Alan Campbell MP, cited the longer deadlines for FOI requests as one factor.¹⁰² He also went on to make his position on this matter clear:

My answer to that would be: get stuff out there—get as much out there as possible—and help MPs in their work in that regard. But there will be some Departments that will think, ‘Well, hang on a minute; how much of this information do I need to put out?’ as opposed to, ‘What’s my reason for not putting everything that I’ve got out there?’¹⁰³

137. We also note that the Cabinet Office’s Guide to Parliamentary Work makes clear that, if anything, more information should be released in response to a WPQ than an FOI request:

Every question should be approached with a predisposition to give relevant information fully. There should be no inconsistencies between the provision of information in answers to written questions and information given under the FOI Act, therefore, if information would be released under FOI, it would also be released in response to a WPQ/QWA. There may sometimes be cases where Ministers decide that the importance of parliamentary accountability means that information which might otherwise be subject to a FOI exemption is given in a WPQ response.¹⁰⁴

Government performance and transparency

140. Our goal in this report is to match the greater sustainability of a lower-quantity but higher-quality WPQs system with greater accountability for the government in meeting our performance targets. As well as being an important democratic principle, it is our view that transparency has a role to play in delivering this greater accountability.

141. We note that there are currently a range of methods at the disposal of individual MPs to deal with unsatisfactory responses to WPQs. These include writing to this committee with examples of poor responses. We will continue to consider and, where we deem it appropriate, publish, any such letters from colleagues. We will also continue to request oral evidence from ministers where their department’s performance falls short of the expected performance threshold in order to provide timely and effective interventions to improve performance.

142. Enhancing transparency in relation to departmental performance data would enhance these mechanisms. For example, it would enable Members to identify cases where a department’s performance is falling so far short of expectations that it is seriously inhibiting parliamentary scrutiny, and it could be possible for a Member—or indeed for this committee or a relevant departmental committee—to seek a debate on the matter in backbench time. Whether to grant such a debate would, of course, be a matter for the Backbench Business Committee to determine in the particular circumstances presented to them. Opposition parties could also seek to use their allotted time for debate under Standing Orders to raise such issues.

143. We visited France’s Assemblée Nationale as part of this inquiry, and we were particularly impressed by their public dashboard of departmental performance in providing timely answers to WPQs.¹⁰⁵ We heard on our visit that this has had a positive impact on government performance, and also that it has led to some public interest in monitoring departmental response rates.

5 WPQs and artificial intelligence

145. Whilst we did not set out to specifically focus on the impact the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) may be having on the operation of the WPQs system, we found this to be an emerging theme that continued to be raised with us as we conducted our inquiry.

146. In oral evidence, Dr Ben Worthy pointed us to a series of WPQs asked by Peter Bedford MP in 2025, about whether departments had used AI in responding to WPQs.¹⁰⁶ The responses received by Mr Bedford were the subject of reporting in The Telegraph at the time, which noted that five departments had confirmed that they were making some use of AI in responding to WPQs. The article quoted Mr Bedford as expressing concern, saying:

[ … ] democratically elected Members of Parliament deserve proper answers to their parliamentary questions, rather than bland, stock answers generated by a computer system.¹⁰⁷

147. We took evidence from Josh MacAlister OBE MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Education, as part of our separate inquiry into Written Parliamentary Questions: Departmental performance in Session 2024–26, in which we discussed his department’s current and future use of AI in responding to WPQs. He told us how the department would approach decisions on the use of AI:

The principle would be that where automation can speed up processes that humans would take longer to do, we will use it with human judgment and sign-off baked into it.¹⁰⁸

148. In particular, he cited cost and public opinion as factors that he expected would ultimately weigh in favour of making some use of AI:

My view is that, in time, the public would look increasingly dimly on Government Departments and agencies not making full use of technology where it can create more efficient processes that save them tax money—these processes are all expensive—and deliver more efficient, quick and transparent public services.¹⁰⁹

149. We also took evidence on whether AI had been used by Members in drafting WPQs. We note that reporting by Sky News in January 2026 attracted widespread interest and cited “Government sources” as suggesting that MPs were using AI to draft questions and that this was a significant factor in the growth in WPQs in this Parliament.¹¹⁰

150. However, over the course of our inquiry, we heard from colleagues including Wendy Chamberlain MP, Ben Obese-Jecty MP and Edward Morello MP that, in their view, it would generally take longer to write an AI prompt than to write a WPQ.¹¹¹ HM Official Opposition also set out clearly in its written evidence that “the Shadow team does not use AI to write questions”.¹¹²

151. We are also aware of reports around the recent development of an AI tool in the Table Office to support it in identifying duplicate questions. We note that this was the subject of some criticism when reported in the press.¹¹³ In response to a WPQ addressed to the House of Commons Commission, it was clarified that this tool served solely to identify questions with a high level of similarity to those previously tabled, to support staff reviewing them in light of the rules of order on questions already answered.¹¹⁴

152. There are two areas where AI could be used within the WPQs system: content (assistance with drafting questions or answers) and process (assistance in the processing of questions and answers).

6 Concluding remarks

156. Written Parliamentary Questions are proceedings in Parliament; they represent a vital tool for Members in their role as parliamentarians, particularly in scrutinising the government of the day. With this in mind, it is essential that Members are the originators of the questions they table, and that they have made a judgement—as an elected representative—that their question represents value for public money. Where information sought is already in the public domain, the House of Commons Library offers valuable support in finding and understanding it. We encourage colleagues to take advantage of those services which are available to all Members and their staff. WPQs are not a tool for straightforward research that could be carried out more quickly and easily by a Member’s own staff or by the House of Commons Library, particularly in light of the costs of a WPQ to the public purse noted above. Indeed, we remind colleagues that Erskine May sets out that questions “have not been allowed when the Member concerned could obtain the information of their own accord without difficulty”.¹¹⁵

157. We also note that WPQs are just one of the many scrutiny tools available to Members of Parliament. We hope that colleagues will continue to consider whether other opportunities available to them by virtue of being Members of Parliament, including corresponding with ministers, asking questions in the Chamber or other procedural opportunities, might be better suited to achieving their aim. We note that the Table Office is always ready to advise Members on the range of options available to them to raise or resolve a particular issue.

159. In improving the system for all, there is a vital role to be played by training. We have recommended in this report that the Leader of the House ensure ministers and officials are better trained on several matters. However, we also encourage colleagues within the House to take up available training and support on Written Parliamentary Questions, and to be familiar with the guidance provided in the MPs’ Guide to Procedure (which is available online, as well as in hard copy from the Vote Office).

161. We note that we have found in our work that there are significant variations between departments in how well they have performed in the face of high quantities of WPQs. We recognise that the Leader of the House takes seriously the importance of WPQs to parliamentarians, and we welcome the role he and his office play in driving up standards across government.

162. However, the WPQs system cannot be improved through the efforts of the Leader of the House alone. It is vital that departmental ministers take steps to familiarise themselves with the content of this report and ensure they address the issues raised within it within their own departments.

164. Lastly, given the importance of WPQs to Members across the House, we recognise the importance of bringing the House with us, particularly in the changes we have proposed to the WPQs system.

Conclusions and Recommendations

Submission of WPQs

1. As we explore further in Chapters 3 and 4, the WPQs system is currently under huge stress both within government and within the House. Submitting WPQs selectively and with purpose can certainly contribute to good scrutiny: but the quantity of questions is no indicator of the quality of outcomes. Regularly submitting very large numbers of WPQs impacts on the finite resources available to support other Members. Those Members who use the system with restraint and focus are adversely affected and such use of WPQs could be construed as an abuse of the system. This practice already poses risks to the overall sustainability of the system, which would quickly be overwhelmed if more Members submitted such large numbers of WPQs. We note that most Members are using the system with restraint to further their parliamentary work and would be concerned if a small minority placed the system under such strain that it became ineffective (Conclusion, Paragraph 12)

2. Members should carefully consider the trade-off between getting high-quality responses and submitting a large quantity, as well as the cost to the public purse, when deciding whether to submit a WPQ. Only an individual Member can judge whether they need to submit a particular WPQ, but all Members should carefully consider the value each question provides to their parliamentary work and whether that represents good value for public money. (Recommendation, Paragraph 13)

3. The core purpose of the WPQs system has not changed from that set out in Erskine May: questions should continue to seek either to obtain information which cannot be obtained easily from public sources or to press for action. WPQs are one of a number of tools available to a Member of Parliament, and often another tool may be more effective in achieving a Member’s aim. We encourage colleagues to actively seek advice from Table Office clerks on the different avenues available to them when considering asking WPQs. (Conclusion, Paragraph 18)

4. WPQs are proceedings in Parliament. They should always be initiated by a Member. Members can take policy advice from a third party and submit a WPQ as a result, but the Member should always assess the value of a potential WPQ to their own parliamentary work, and disregard any benefit to third parties. As the right to submit WPQs belongs to elected Members alone, it follows that Members’ staff should only be submitting questions on behalf of their Member and on their instruction. (Conclusion, Paragraph 24)

5. We consider that an equivalent safeguard to the requirement for signatures on hard-copy submissions should be introduced for the e-tabling of WPQs via MemberHub, to ensure that the link between the Member and the WPQ is not weakened or lost altogether. We accordingly recommend that the functionality that requires questions submitted by staff to be approved by the Member before being sent to the Table Office be applied to all MemberHub accounts; it should no longer be an option that can be enabled or disabled by individual Members. (Recommendation, Paragraph 26)

6. Our view is that the current limit of 20 WPQs that can be e-tabled by each Member on each sitting day continues to be appropriate as it allows Members to respond to time-sensitive issues. This limit should remain unchanged. However, it is a limit that Members may hit on occasion, and not a target to achieve or an allowance to be routinely exhausted. We warn that if more Members tabled to the limit every day, the system would quickly be overwhelmed and a lower limit would have to be considered. (Conclusion, Paragraph 33)

7. The lack of any limit on the e-tabling of WPQs in recesses of one week or longer is, in our view, an anomaly. We would not expect levels of parliamentary activity to need to be greater during recesses than when the House is sitting. We agree with our predecessor committee that there is a strong case for treating longer recesses differently in relation to the number at which the limit is set, and it is therefore our view that a limit should be in place that reflects the length of each recess. (Conclusion, Paragraph 41)

8. We recommend that a limit of 20 WPQs per Member should be imposed for e-tabling in recess periods of up to one full calendar week in length. For longer recesses, we recommend that an additional 10 WPQs be added to each Member’s quota for each additional full calendar week. We recommend that in all cases the limit be applied across the whole recess, to maximise flexibility for colleagues in how they choose to use their available questions. For any bank holidays which fall outside a recess period, or after a printing day, the existing arrangement should remain in place that any questions e-tabled on the bank holiday are counted towards the limit of 20 for the first subsequent sitting day. (Recommendation, Paragraph 42)

9. We encourage colleagues seeking an answer sooner in the long recesses to consider other options at their disposal, such as ministerial correspondence, as tools that are not proceedings in Parliament are better suited to obtaining timely responses when the House is in recess. (Recommendation, Paragraph 46)

10. Named day questions remain an important, albeit exceptional, option at Members’ disposal when there is an especially pressing need for an urgent answer to a particular written question. (Conclusion, Paragraph 58)

11. To reflect their purpose, and introduce clearer, modernised terminology, named day questions should be renamed ‘priority’ WPQs. The date for response should be set automatically in line with the earliest date that can at present be named: three working days after tabling (provided that day is a sitting day). (Recommendation, Paragraph 59)

12. To further reinforce their exceptional nature, and to encourage colleagues to make an informed choice, a banner should appear in MemberHub when a Member is seeking to submit a ‘priority’ WPQ (or approve a ‘priority’ WPQ submitted by their staff), seeking confirmation of this intention, and highlighting that ordinary questions can receive fuller answers in a less urgent timeframe. (Recommendation, Paragraph 60)

13. The limit for ‘priority’ questions should not change, remaining at five per Member per sitting (or printing) day. (Recommendation, Paragraph 61)

Processing of WPQs in the House

14. We wish to record our sincere gratitude to the Table Office team for their ongoing efforts to facilitate Members’ parliamentary work by providing professional impartial advice to all Members. We note that they have done this in the context of a significant recent rise in the quantity of WPQs, and we echo the thanks to them that colleagues have expressed in their evidence to this inquiry. (Conclusion, Paragraph 66)

15. We recommend that the Principal Clerk of the Table Office work to deliver continuing improvements in the Table Office’s consistency of approach, by promoting best practice and continuing to engage with Members who provide feedback on their user experience of the Table Office’s services. (Recommendation, Paragraph 67)

16. It is our view that these rules of order continue to support the core purpose of WPQs—“to obtain information or press for action”—and thus remain appropriate. We do not recommend any changes to them. (Conclusion, Paragraph 70)

17. It is important that Members should be able to scrutinise government announcements via written questions even where such announcements have not been made to the House, whilst purely speculative questions should not be permitted. In this context, we welcome the Table Office’s generally “permissive” approach to factual basis. Given the pragmatic operation of the rule on factual basis in practice, we find that, as with the rules of order for questions more generally, no change to this rule is warranted at this time. (Conclusion, Paragraph 74)

18. ‘Carding’ is an effective method of resolving queries to ensure that all questions tabled conform to the rules of order set out by the House itself, and to enable the Table Office to have the conversations necessary with Members to ensure the timely tabling of questions. Although the Table Office frequently has productive conversations with Members’ staff about a ‘carded’ question, given the importance of Members’ personal responsibility for their questions, it is right that the Table Office exercise their professional judgement and, as at present, may sometimes decide that a card can only be effectively dealt with by speaking directly to the Member. (Conclusion, Paragraph 82)

19. We encourage colleagues to address any ‘card’ notifications swiftly, to ensure the smooth running of the system for all. To aid the system in operating smoothly, we recommend that where a Member reaches the threshold of 20 carded questions awaiting resolution, they should not be able to submit any further WPQs until they have addressed all their outstanding cards by either speaking to the Table Office to resolve the query or by withdrawing the carded questions themselves. We recommend that this be implemented as soon as the House Administration has developed the necessary technical infrastructure in MemberHub. (Recommendation, Paragraph 83)

20. In our view, the terms ‘card’ and ‘carding’ are outdated and can cause confusion to Members who were not in Parliament when physical cards were in use. We also note and welcome the work of the Modernisation Committee to modernise the practices and procedures of the House of Commons, in particular in its recent report on improving the accessibility of the House of Commons and its procedures. We therefore recommend that the terms ‘query’ and ‘querying’ be adopted in place of ‘card’ and ‘carding’ and we invite the Table Office to reflect this in their practice and via any necessary changes to MemberHub. (Recommendation, Paragraph 86)

21. The current cut-off times for same-day e-tabling of questions have the potential to create issues for the smaller evening team in the Table Office in both completing other vital tasks that must be undertaken later in the day (such as finalising the Order Paper and discussing motions or amendments with Members) and providing greater consistency in how questions are treated. It follows that an earlier cut-off time would support our aim of increasing consistency of approach in the interest of fairness to all Members, and ensuring that other important matters being dealt with contemporaneously by the Table Office can receive due attention. (Conclusion, Paragraph 95)

22. We recommend that the cut-off time for same-day e-tabling of WPQs be brought forward on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays to 4pm. We do not propose a change to the 2.30pm deadline on Fridays. To address concerns about the ability to table particularly urgent written questions, we recommend that Members should continue to be able to table written questions in hard copy in the Table Office until the rise of the House, providing an exceptional mechanism for responding to urgent or developing matters even after the e-tabling deadline has passed. (Recommendation, Paragraph 96)

23. We agree with our predecessor committee that the Table Office requires discretion to hold over some ordinary WPQs to the following day, and the clerks should continue to exercise this discretion where necessary, on an exceptional basis. (Conclusion, Paragraph 99)

24. We recommend that a ‘deadline for answer’ should appear in place of the current ‘date for answer’ alongside published WPQs, effectively removing the current practice of setting an earliest date for response. This will improve clarity and reflect the expectations set out in our performance monitoring work. The new ‘deadline for answer’ should be set as the first sitting day that is five working days from tabling for an ordinary question, and the first sitting day that is three working days from tabling for a priority question. (Recommendation, Paragraph 103)

Government responses to WPQs

25. The work of our predecessors, which we are continuing in this Parliament, of reporting regularly on departmental performance in answering Written Parliamentary Questions has become well-established as an important scrutiny function performed on behalf of the House. Our report on performance in the 2024–26 session will be published in due course. (Conclusion, Paragraph 106)

26. We have made proposals to make the WPQs system more sustainable. We expect that in return the government will meet our performance targets and consistently provide full and frank responses to written questions. (Conclusion, Paragraph 108)

27. We recommend that government departments each review their practices in relation to grouping questions, and that the Leader of the House exercise a co-ordinating function in ensuring this is done. This should be based on the principle that questions should be grouped sparingly and, where questions are grouped, each question should still always be individually addressed within the combined response. We expect departmental ministers who are involved in answering WPQs to take personal responsibility for this in all responses they provide to the House. (Recommendation, Paragraph 113)

28. We agree with the 2010 Speaker’s ruling that reference to material on official websites is not a helpful way of answering Written Parliamentary Questions, and restate our support for this principle. The aim of the government should always be to fully, directly and helpfully answer questions put to it by parliamentarians. (Conclusion, Paragraph 118)

29. We recommend that the Leader of the House draw the attention of departmental ministers to the provisions of the Guide to Parliamentary Work about reference to external information, with particular emphasis on the requirements that the information must be provided in an “easily comprehensible” format for WPQ responses, and that relevant extracts and not just hyperlinks should be included when referring to external information. (Recommendation, Paragraph 119)

30. We believe that there is scope for the government to improve its communication with Members and with the House authorities when it declines, for a legitimate reason, to provide information requested in a WPQ response. (Conclusion, Paragraph 128)

31. We recommend that the Leader of the House remind departmental ministers of the requirement to be explicit in their answer where requested information cannot be released, and to give a clear reason for that. Such answers should be as specific as possible about what cannot be released and why, and should, in addition, seek to provide a partial answer where the minister is able to do so. Where a clear reason has not been provided for declining to release requested information in full, we anticipate that a further question requesting one would be orderly. (Recommendation, Paragraph 129)

32. We further recommend that the Leader of the House arrange for his office and departmental parliamentary teams to communicate proactively with the Table Office where there is a government ‘block’ in place on a particular subject, and the exact scope of that block. This would reduce the number of questions asked of the government that it will be unable to answer—and so leave more resources for questions it can answer—and also assist the Table Office in its work to aid in scrutiny by helping Members draft questions that would not need to be ‘blocked’ by the government. (Recommendation, Paragraph 130)

33. We welcome the Leader of the House’s message about releasing information with the aim of being helpful to Members, the proper implementation of which in departments would have significant potential to address the concerns raised with us by colleagues about the link between information being withheld and the number of questions submitted. (Conclusion, Paragraph 136)

34. Written Parliamentary Questions and freedom of information requests are different systems, and rightly so. Failing to meet FOI requirements is a breach of statutory obligations and can incur financial penalties. WPQs serve the vital constitutional function of government accountability to Parliament and must therefore be treated by the government with at least equal seriousness. (Conclusion, Paragraph 138)

35. We recommend that the Leader of the House engage with all departmental FOI teams and parliamentary teams to reinforce the principle that departments should never withhold from a WPQ response information that is releasable under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, and to encourage co-ordination between these teams to ensure this. Indeed, in line with the government’s own Guide to Parliamentary Work, WPQ responses should at times go further than is required under that Act, including by providing commentary or analysis of the relevant information, given the primacy of the constitutional principle of government accountability to Parliament. (Recommendation, Paragraph 139)

36. We recommend that the House Administration introduce a public-facing dashboard, hosted on the parliamentary website, to facilitate the more regular publication of information on departmental performance in answering WPQs, and therefore facilitate wider scrutiny. We recommend that the dashboard be updated monthly, and cover the same data this committee tracks for each answering body – namely:

a. the number of WPQs received that month, divided into ordinary and (now) priority questions;

b. the number and proportion of priority questions answered on time; and

c. the number and proportion of ordinary questions answered on time (within five working days). (Conclusion, Paragraph 144)

WPQs and artificial intelligence

37. We consider that the use of AI to speed up the processing of WPQs—whether in the Table Office or in government—is to be welcomed as an initiative to give Members a smoother experience of the WPQs system and promote the efficient use of public resources. To prevent the adoption of emerging technologies to streamline processes and ultimately speed up a system focused on transparency and accountability would be nonsensical. (Conclusion, Paragraph 153)

38. We also welcome, albeit more cautiously, the use of AI to assist more substantively with drafts of both questions and answers. However, we stress that the important principles that Members must take responsibility for the content of WPQs they table and that ministers must take responsibility for the answers they provide are undiminished by this. (Conclusion, Paragraph 154)

39. To this end, we recommend that where AI is adopted to assist in drafting questions and responses, even more careful checking of questions and answers takes place by the Member and the minister respectively. Members must continue to ensure that all questions support their parliamentary work and represent value for public money, while ministers—as well as the officials advising them—must satisfy themselves that answers provided to the House are as full and helpful as possible while remaining completely accurate. (Recommendation, Paragraph 155)

Concluding remarks

40. We have sought to review all stages of the ‘lifecycle’ of a Written Parliamentary Question to ensure that the system works well from beginning to end for Members. Our goal has been to create a lower-quantity, higher-quality WPQs system through targeted interventions. We acknowledge, however, that the system remains in a precarious position and it would not take a great increase in numbers to overwhelm it. These interventions will therefore succeed only if colleagues assist in pursing the aim of reducing question numbers, by first considering alternative tools for obtaining information (such as the services provided by the House of Commons Library) and scrutiny (such as ministerial correspondence or other parliamentary proceedings). In return, Members are always entitled to expect full and helpful answers from the government. (Conclusion, Paragraph 158)

41. We recommend that Members and their staff proactively seek training on WPQs from the Table Office, and we recommend that the Table Office work to promote its training offer more widely, both at the start of a Parliament and on an ongoing basis. (Recommendation, Paragraph 160)

42. We recommend that the Leader of the House take steps to draw this report to the attention of departmental ministers and to reinforce expectations of them in answering Written Parliamentary Questions. (Recommendation, Paragraph 163)

43. We recommend that the government bring forward a motion to enable the House to endorse this report and the specific recommendations made within it. (Recommendation, Paragraph 165)

44. We intend to continue to monitor the WPQs system and the implementation of our recommendations as part of our regular monitoring work on WPQs performance. We may recommend further changes as part of that work, or alter our approach to that work as future circumstances demand. (Conclusion, Paragraph 166)

Appendix 1: Member survey results

The survey

The Committee ran an online survey, which was shared with Members of Parliament only, between 24 November 2025 and 16 January 2026. 30 responses were received.

The questions were:

1. Do you regularly use WPQs as part of your parliamentary work? [Yes or No]

2. For what purpose do you primarily use WPQs? [Free text]

3. Do your office staff submit WPQs on your behalf? [Yes or No]

4. Have you ever felt the need to submit a Freedom of Information (FOI) request when a Government Department has failed to provide the information you sought? [Yes or No]

5. Do you think that the current limits on the number of WPQs that can be submitted per day are: [Too high or Too low or About right]

6. Do you have any other views on how the current WPQ system is operating?

The form was anonymous by default, and all but four Members chose to respond anonymously. We have chosen not to publish the names of those who gave them in line with data protection best practice to avoid identification of individual respondents.

Responses received

This appendix combines all responses received to the survey. For free-text answers, responses have been separated into individual points and categorised under headings, to support analysis of the responses. Obvious spelling errors have been corrected and occasionally connectives such as “secondly” and “also” have been deleted as part of splitting up responses for categorisation. Responses are otherwise unedited, so there are differences in tone and style, and some duplication of responses.

Question 1: Do you regularly use WPQs as part of your parliamentary work?

Question 2: For what purpose do you primarily use WPQs?

Responses to this question have been categorised into three headings to draw out key themes:

1. Research and obtaining information: those that broadly describe the informational purpose of WPQs

2. Lobbying and scrutiny: those that broadly describe how WPQs play a role in Members’ scrutiny function and in lobbying the government

3. Benefits of WPQs compared to other methods: those that compare WPQs to other tools available to Members

Research and obtaining information

• To gain information from Departments.
• To obtain information from the government.
• To make enquiries on specific topic areas of interest, specifically trying to obtain particular factual information pertaining to specific policies that might not be readily accessible.
• To find out the current government position on an issue.
• To get answers on specific and complex issues.
• To find our information at constituency level, to find out policy answers to specific circumstances.
• Getting information from the government or asking them to clarify positions.
• To gain information from a ministry/department on behalf of constituents.
• To interrogate information from government that is not otherwise publicly available and wouldn’t receive a clear answer from ministers in the Chamber.
• For asking for more information on behalf of constituents as part of casework.
• To get written answers, especially when answers in the chamber often ignore the actual question and waffle about something else!
• To elicit information from the Government.
• To get specific information.
• For finding answers to policy questions that generally aren’t available online.
• Occasionally if the policy position is not clear.
• We use WPQs to try to find out information not readily available from other sources e.g. the Commons Library, Hansard etc or to ascertain the Government’s thinking about an issue where that is not already clear or determined.
• Improving understanding of government policy.
• WPQs are one of the principal avenues accessible for MPs seeking information from this Government. WPQs allow all MPs to acquire statistics and broader information surrounding policy announcements.
• Find answer to specific policy details.
• Research – gathering information. To gather greater insight into Government decision-making.
• To gather information from the Government, particularly as opposition parties have less access to data or contacts in decision-making positions (e.g., Ministers, SpAds or Department officials).
• I primarily use WPQs to request further details from the Government on its announcements and plans, particularly relating to my Shadow portfolio. However, since the current Labour Government was elected, there have been multiple instances where I have felt that pursuant WPQs have been necessary given the quality of the response given by the Minister(s) demonstrates a wilful failure to meaningfully engage with the parliamentary process.
• To obtain further information about Government announcements and to obtain written responses to casework from Ministers.
• To put a query on the record.

Lobbying and scrutiny

• To lobby the government to take action in areas of interest.
• To raise policy areas that I would not be able to by other means.
• To draw departments’ and ministers’ attention to certain outcomes (intended and otherwise).
• To hold ministers to account, to show my constituents that I am raising issues for them and to highlights the massive clean up operation this government has.
• To put pressure on civil servants/flag an issue to their mind.
• Keeping an issue on the Government’s agenda, often as a precursor to a letter or OPQ on the same issue.
• To check the Government’s progress on important areas of policy especially within campaign areas and to ensure transparency of governmental work to constituents.
• Raise issues on behalf of constituents, organisations and also to follow up on select committees.
• Identifying gaps or flaws in policy and legislation.
• They enable all colleagues to scrutinise national policy and identify its impacts on our constituencies. I often use these WPQs to obtain information that is otherwise not publicly available, as the bedrock for further scrutiny and questions to Ministers.
• On behalf of constituents.
• To raise constituent queries or issues. It is also an important part of establishing whether or not a government department is aware of an issue.
• It aims to examine the Government’s stance on specific policies and demonstrate to constituents the MP’s commitment to using every available parliamentary channel to amplify concerns to the relevant Secretary of State.

Benefits of WPQs compared to other methods

• Ease of access.
• Guaranteed to be selected/acted on (no bobbing).
• Clear tracking/audit trail.
• To raise questions that aren’t as high priority as an oral Question but are crucial to better understanding or pressing the position of government. I’ll often try this first before going through an FOI for data I can’t find by other means.
• Without WPQs, it would be a lot harder to find information and would require regular FOIs.

Question 3: Do your office staff submit WPQs on your behalf?

Question 4: Have you ever felt the need to submit a Freedom of Information (FOI) request when a Government Department has failed to provide the information you sought?

Question 5: Do you think that the current limits on the number of WPQs that can be submitted per day are:

Question 6: Do you have any other views on how the current WPQ system is operating?

Responses to this question have been categorised into five headings to draw out key themes:

1. Quality of government responses to WPQs: those that describe concerns with the content of government responses

2. Timeliness of government responses to WPQs: those that relate to the government’s performance against deadlines

3. Internal House of Commons processes: those that relate to the Table Office’s handling of WPQs

4. Quantity of WPQs: those that relate to the tabling of WPQs by Members

5. Suggestions for change: those that make specific recommendations for the committee to consider (sub-divided thematically)

Quality of Government responses to WPQs

• Having experience of WQs in the NI Assembly, the scope of WPQs are more restrictive, but I feel the answers are more evasive, as to why I resorted to using FoIs to get information from the NIO after a series of WPQs returned very weak and evasive answers.
• Too many questions are ducked resulting in the need for pursuant questions. What a waste of time and effort which would be avoided if the original question was answered constructively.
• I believe that many of the answers provided by government departments are too lacking in detail and often designed to avoid answering the substance of the question, but rather simply to provide some sort of response.
• The quality of the answers are at times very poor and do not at times answer the question that had been tabled.
• Government doesn’t answer questions properly. They refer to previous answers which are in the vague area but don’t give any information. It feels like they try to obfuscate rather than be helpful.
• I want to get information that is not easily available and/or on niche subjects but the quality of answers is not always high. If the answer is ‘we don’t know the timeline’ or ‘we’re not going to do that’ I’d prefer a straight answer. I’ve done 62 questions in the past year and a bit and I feel like that is a fairly sensible amount which should not be overly burdensome on the Government. I would say that if initial answers were of higher quality that might stem follow-ups.
• It is broadly fine, apart from the quality of answers. It is a difficult situation where the same question can’t be asked twice when a question isn’t answered in the first instance.
• The system itself is operating fine but the Government has given up on providing anything resembling meaningful answers. Often answers are one sentence and do not even try to engage with the topic.
• We generally get satisfactory answers, but we have accepted that responses will always be somewhat equivocal.
• The answers often aren’t very helpful/informative, and a lot of the time don’t address the question that was actually asked. Occasionally the question is misunderstood.
• The poor responses and the time lags often mean frustrating interactions and usually several back and forth exchanges before you get what you need. If they were answered fully in the first place it would reduce how many we’d need to submit.
• The level of detail in the responses is often unacceptable.
• The two main barriers to the effective use of WPQs are the Table Office and Ministers not providing complete answers. Because of these two barriers, my submissions take longer and require frequent follow-ups with the Department. [Content on TO included below] Further, responses from Departments have steadily worsened over the last twelve months. It is clear that Ministers are signing off on incomplete answers that often fail to address the question or omit supporting evidence. Because of this, it is usually necessary to submit pursuant questions to gather this information. This pattern suggests that Ministers, by making questions less revealing, may be trying to reduce the number of questions MPs ask and shift them towards FOIs.
• Government needs to answer the questions; not dodge the question. Far too many specifics are ignored within the answer which tends to be vague and precisely what you can find online. That is not unique parliamentary scrutiny.
• Responses from the Government are often very vague and brief, and we often receive responses which say they don’t have the information requested of them. This is a real cause for concern. It means that we have to regularly submit an excessive number of follow-up questions in order to tease out a direct answer.
• Government responses to Parliamentary Questions are often broad in nature and may not include detailed or localised information. As a result, Members may need to table questions in different forms to obtain fuller information and a clearer understanding of policy development. This is particularly important to enable Members to represent their constituents effectively and to scrutinise Government policy.
• Ministers under this current government appear to be dismissive of this aspect of the parliamentary process. This has ironically caused myself and my colleagues to submit even more questions given we are simply not getting answers on the first attempt.
• The quality of some responses has been poor, with little detail that addresses the question at hand. Due to the inability to re-table a question, this means that a poor response results in the question not being able to be answered. This is particularly frustrating if it is an important issue to me or my constituents.

Timeliness of Government responses to WPQs

• The deadline for Government to answer by is missed so often it is basically pointless.
• Ordinary written questions outcomes are so unpredictable it forces one to submit named day questions.
• The response time from the Government is taking too long
• Currently, the system results in many questions being missed before the relevant deadlines. I tabled a number of written questions, some of which were Named Day Questions, at the end of October that were answered in January.

Internal House of Commons processes

• I had previously had issues with the Table Office rejecting legitimate questions but after a complaint there have been less instances of WQs being turned down. At the start of the Parliament, the Table Office would often reject a WQ without researching the topic to ascertain its eligibility.
• It’s fine from a submission end.
• [Opening sentence included under quality of Government responses] Over the last year, it has become evident that the Table Office (TO) is taking it upon itself to block questions that it deems inappropriate. I say ‘inappropriate’ because these questions are perfectly in order, but the TO has intervened to suggest they should not be asked or that the wording be changed significantly. This includes times when I have been told that the Government has put a “block” on questions about issues it deems embarrassing. It is not within the remit of the TO to comply with Government direction but to support MPs in their work. There has also been an example of the TO suggesting to a member of my staff that we might want to reconsider a question (without any firm basis) to avoid making certain information public.
• I have serious concerns over the rigid guidelines the Table Office operates under given multiple instances where they have effectively blocked me from asking my intended questions and have morphed them to a point where they no longer achieve the desired intent. I consider this to be overreach and this has meant a lot of my time and my office’s time has been wasted in discussing banal changes to a sentence. Although staff have been friendly and helpful, the reasons given for carded questions have not only been arcane but sometimes contradictory with their own advice on orderliness. The Table Office must be there to support MPs, not to obstruct them in asking potentially embarrassing questions or exerting pressure on the government of the day. The current rules should be relaxed in order to assist MPs to do their principal job of scrutinising the government.

Quantity of WPQs

• I submit around one WPQ a week – when I need more information on behalf of a constituent. I cannot conceive of a reason why I would ever need to submit 20 questions a day, five of which can be named day questions. The amount of Government time it must take up to answer all the questions! Parliamentary scrutiny would be better served, and MPs still be able to do their important roles, including holding the Government to account, with a much lower number of WPQs a week. This would also enable Government to put more time into answering questions and therefore improve the quality of the response.
• If MPs want better answers they need to reduce volume.
• I think too many WPQs are being submitted. I use them sparingly because I do not want to overburden civil service and Ministers but I do not feel all colleagues are doing this.
• The number going in is too high and many questions are low quality as they are designed to signal an MP has asked about an issue rather than to get a useful answer.
• I am a frequent user of WPQs. As someone who has worked in the private sector at a high standard I rely on this process for a number of reasons. 1. The WPQ system is more familiar/aligned with 21st century working style. More time efficient than the chamber. More reliable than the chamber (bobbing). Opportunity to respond faster and build on answers (cannot do in the chamber). While I utilise the WPQ system more than some others, I recognise that it can be misused.
• I know there is frustration in government, I can understand that, but this is a vital tool in our armoury as backbenchers. I have never used AI in the drafting of a written parliamentary question and have no intention of starting.
• Where there is a disproportionate number of WPQs impacting on staff capacity to respond to MP letters regarding constituency issues the latter should be prioritised.

Suggestions for change: Tabling process

• I would suggest reducing the number of named day questions that can be submitted per day to be answered within 5 sitting days and introducing named day to be answered within 14 sitting days and 28 sitting days.
• Needs to be a lower limit.
• I feel the system could be replaced with one letter (explaining/justifying query and relevant questions) per week per dept max, or the number of questions reduced from 20 per day per person, to 5 or less.
• Where members are using AI to generate a disproportionately high number of WPQs those could be sifted out to enable genuine WPQs to be prioritised. It should be easy to ascertain which members are abusing the WPQ system and restrictions imposed where that is found to be the case.
• Given the lottery of QPQ, to put limits on WPQ would hinder democratic processes. Constituents, via their MPs have a right to raise questions of the Government and Government Departments.
• Language rules on questions should be relaxed to better facilitate context for questions.

Suggestions for change: Government responses and follow-up

• One reform I would recommend is allowing follow-up questions if an answer is not given. Currently the Table Office can reject questions as duplicates even if no information or proper answer was given. This would encourage the Government to actually answer questions as a failure to do so could see follow-ups submitted.
• I believe if the government has grouped questions, they must offer a justification as to why they have done so. If they have grouped questions but failed to address one of the questions grouped, the member should be allowed to re-submit that question without the government referring back to the answer previously given. If duplicate questions tabled more than six months apart, government must give a new answer, not refer back to previous.
• If answer is not given because it would be too costly, it should be incumbent on the government to give whatever answer they can give to cost. e.g. if a question asks for data from the past 5 years and it is too costly to answer, the government should give whatever data they can give to cost.
• If MPs are subject to questions being carded, then it stands to reason that Ministers should conversely have their responses carded if they omit to actually answer what is being asked of them.

Suggestions for change: Other

• I think there should be a parallel system for directly elected mayors.

Formal minutes

Wednesday 9 September 2026

Members present

Cat Smith, in the Chair

James Asser

Bambos Charalambous

Sir Christopher Chope

Tracy Gilbert

Gurinder Singh Josan

John Lamont

Katrina Murray

Kenneth Stevenson

Martin Wrigley

Written Parliamentary Questions

Draft Report (Written Parliamentary Questions), proposed by the Chair, brought up and read.

Ordered, That the draft Report be read a second time, paragraph by paragraph.

Paragraphs 1 to 166 read and agreed to.

Summary agreed to.

A paper was appended to the Report as Appendix 1.

Resolved, That the Report be the First Report of the Committee to the House.

Ordered, That the Chair make the Report to the House.

Ordered, That embargoed copies of the Report be made available (Standing Order No. 134).

Adjournment

Adjourned till Wednesday 14 October at 2.30 pm.

Witnesses

The following witnesses gave evidence. Transcripts can be viewed on the inquiry publications page of the Committee’s website.

Wednesday 15 April 2026

Alex Burghart MP, Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, HM Official Opposition; Wendy Chamberlain MP, Chief Whip, Liberal DemocratsQ1–21

Wednesday 22 April 2026

Alex Burghart MP, Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, HM Official Opposition; Wendy Chamberlain MP, Chief Whip, Liberal DemocratsQ22–33

Wednesday 20 May 2026

Dr Ben Worthy, Reader in Politics and Public Policy, Birkbeck College, University of London; Jenna Corderoy, Investigative Reporter, Democracy for Sale UK; Alex Parsons, Democracy Lead and Senior Researcher, mySocietyQ34–42

Warren Seddon, Director of FOI and Transparency, Information Commissioner’s OfficeQ43–53

Clare Brunton, Acting Director, Constitution, Honours and Memorialisation, Information and Major Events, Cabinet Office; Eirian Walsh Atkins, Deputy Director, Freedom of Information, Cabinet OfficeQ54–72

Wednesday 3 June 2026

Ben Obese-Jecty MPQ73–79

Charlie Dewhirst MPQ80–88

Edward Morello MPQ89–99

Tessa Munt MPQ100–108

Neil Duncan-Jordan MPQ109–115

Martin Wrigley MPQ116–121

Wednesday 10 June 2026

Dr Farrah Bhatti, Principal Clerk of the Table Office, House of Commons Administration; Nick Beech, Acting Deputy Head of the Table Office, House of Commons AdministrationQ122–148

Wednesday 24 June 2026

Rt Hon Sir Alan Campbell MP, Leader of the House of CommonsQ149–186

Published written evidence

The following written evidence was received and can be viewed on the inquiry publications page of the Committee’s website.

WRP numbers are generated by the evidence processing system and so may not be complete.

1 Hleb Buziuk WRP0001

2 Dr Stephen Holden Bates, Dr Caroline Bhattacharya and Professor Stephen McKay WRP0002

3 Rupert Lowe MP WRP0003

4 Dr Ruxandra Serban WRP0004

5 mySociety WRP0005

6 Rt Hon Mr Richard Holden MP WRP0006

7 Tom Badham WRP0008

8 Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office WRP0009

9 Policy@Manchester WRP0010

10 Dr Caroline Johnson MP WRP0011

11 Table Office, House of Commons WRP0012

12 Daisy Cooper MP WRP0013

13 HM Official Opposition WRP0014

14 HM Government WRP0015

15 Hansard Society WRP0016

16 Information Commissioner’s Office WRP0017

17 Alicia Kearns MP WRP0018

18 Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi MP WRP0019

19 Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP WRP0020

20 Dame Caroline Dinenage DBE MP WRP0021

21 Rt Hon Sir John Hayes CBE MP WRP0022

22 Green Party MPs WRP0023

23 James McMurdock MP WRP0024

24 Dr Ben Worthy WRP0025

25 Seamus Logan MP WRP0026

List of Reports from the Committee during the current Parliament

All publications from the Committee are available on the publications page of the Committee’s website.

Session 2024–26

Number	Title	Reference
5th	Elections within the House of Commons	HC 535
4th	Call lists	HC 536
3rd	Status of independent Members of Parliament	HC 534
2nd	Proxy voting: Review of arrangements introduced in Session 2024–25	HC 489
1st	Written parliamentary questions: Departmental performance in Session 2023–24	HC 461
6th Special	Elections within the House of Commons: Government Response	HC 1829
5th Special	Call lists: Government Response	HC 1814
4th Special	Status of independent Members of Parliament: Government and House Administration Responses	HC 1314
3rd Special	Proxy Voting: Review of arrangements introduced in the 2024–25 Session: Government Response	HC 1353
2nd Special	Written Parliamentary Questions – Departmental performance in Session 2023–24: Government Response	HC 793
1st Special	Written Parliamentary Questions: Departmental performance in Session 2022–23: Government responses	HC 325

---

Footnotes

1 See, for example, Letter from Sarah Olney MP relating to WPQs, 21 March 2024; Letter from Sir Christopher Chope OBE MP relating to WPQs, 14 April 2024; HC Deb, 17 June 2025, col 163 (Dr Caroline Johnson MP); HC Deb, 22 July 2025, col 743 (Alison Bennett MP); HC Deb, 29 October 2025, cols 350–351 (Mr Richard Holden MP); HC Deb, 18 November 2025, cols 651–652 (Seamus Logan MP).

2 Dr Ben Worthy is Reader in Politics and Public Policy at Birkbeck College, University of London. Jenna Corderoy is an Investigative Reporter at Democracy for Sale. Alex Parsons is Democracy Lead and a Senior Researcher at mySociety.

3 Letter from the Leader of the House of Commons relating to WPQs costs, dated 26 August 2026

4 See Appendix.

5 Erskine May, 25th edition, 22.11

6 Q74

7 Q90

8 Oral evidence taken on 10 December 2025, Q58

9 See Appendix.

10 Q90

11 Q124

12 Procedure Committee, Second Report of Session 2010–11, Improving the effectiveness of parliamentary scrutiny: (a) Select committee amendments, (b) Explanatory statements on amendments, (c) Written parliamentary questions, HC 800, para 40

13 Policy@Manchester (WRP0010)

14 Q115

15 Letter from the Senior Deputy Speaker, House of Lords, relating to Written Parliamentary Questions, 9 July 2026

16 HM Government (WRP0015)

17 See Appendix.

18 Q99

19 Green Party MPs (WRP0023)

20 Rt Hon Sir John Hayes CBE MP (WRP0022)

21 Procedure Committee, Second Report of Session 2010–11, Improving the effectiveness of parliamentary scrutiny: (a) Select committee amendments, (b) Explanatory statements on amendments, (c) Written parliamentary questions, HC 800, para 51

22 CJ (2011–12) 905

23 Procedure Committee, Second Report of Session 2010–11, Improving the effectiveness of parliamentary scrutiny: (a) Select committee amendments, (b) Explanatory statements on amendments, (c) Written parliamentary questions, HC 800, para 51

24 Procedure Committee, Third Report of Session 2012–13, E-tabling of written questions, HC 775, para 19; CJ (2012–13) 680

25 Q99

26 HM Government (WRP0015)

27 Table Office, House of Commons (WRP0012)

28 Select Committee on Parliamentary Questions, Report of Session 1971–72, HC 393, para 28; CJ (1972–73) 84

29 Select Committee on Parliamentary Questions, Report of Session 1971–72, HC 393, para 28

30 Procedure Committee, Third Report of Session 2001–02, Parliamentary Questions, HC 622, para 70

31 Procedure Committee, Third Report of Session 2001–02, Parliamentary Questions, HC 622, para 73; CJ (2001–02) 778

32 HM Government (WRP0015)

33 Q7

34 Q74

35 Q7

36 Q83

37 Q183

38 House of Commons Library, Written parliamentary questions from MPs: Recent trends, Research Briefing 10632, 16 April 2026

39 Q166; Q184

40 Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi MP (WRP0019)

41 Q121

42 Green Party MPs (WRP0023)

43 Q85

44 Q86

45 Rt Hon Sir John Hayes CBE MP (WRP0022)

46 Q22

47 Erskine May, 25th edition, 22.7

48 Table Office, House of Commons (WRP0012)

49 Q135

50 Erskine May, 25th edition, 22.12–22.22

51 HM Official Opposition (WRP0014); Alicia Kearns MP (WRP0018)

52 Erskine May, 25th edition, 22.13

53 Q137

54 Erskine May, 25th edition, 22.12

55 Q137

56 Table Office, House of Commons (WRP0012)

57 Q135

58 Table Office, House of Commons (WRP0012)

59 See, for example, Q81 [Charlie Dewhirst MP] and Q102 [Tessa Munt MP].

60 Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi MP (WRP0019)

61 HM Official Opposition (WRP0014); Written Questions PQ 52867, 22 May 2025

62 Table Office, House of Commons (WRP0012)

63 Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (WRP0009)

64 Q148

65 Procedure Committee, Third Report of Session 2008–09, Written Parliamentary Questions, HC 859, para 36

66 Procedure Committee, Third Report of Session 2008–09, Written Parliamentary Questions, HC 859, para 36

67 Procedure Committee, Second Report of Session 2010–11, Improving the effectiveness of parliamentary scrutiny: (a) Select committee amendments, (b) Explanatory statements on amendments, (c) Written parliamentary questions, HC 800, para 50; CJ (2010–12) 905

68 Procedure Committee, Eighth Report of Session 2010–12, E-tabling of parliamentary questions for written answer, HC 1823, para 7; CJ (2010–12) 1289

69 CJ (2012–13) 160–161; House of Commons Library, Sitting hours, Research Briefing 6380, 5 November 2015, p 11

70 Table Office, House of Commons (WRP0012)

71 Table Office, House of Commons (WRP0012)

72 Q20

73 Q134

74 Q134

75 Q19

76 Procedure Committee, Second Report of Session 2010–11, Improving the effectiveness of parliamentary scrutiny: (a) Select committee amendments, (b) Explanatory statements on amendments, (c) Written parliamentary questions, HC 800, para 52

77 Q127

78 Select Committee on Parliamentary Questions, Report of Session 1971–72, HC 393, para 28; CJ (1972–73) 84

79 Table Office, House of Commons (WRP0012)

80 Procedure Committee, First Report of Session 2024–26, Written parliamentary questions: Departmental performance in Session 2023–24, HC 461, para 2

81 Procedure Committee, Third Report of Session 2008–09, Written Parliamentary Questions, HC 859, para 87

82 Cabinet Office, Guide to Parliamentary Work, November 2024 edition

83 See, for example: Letter from the Chair to the Leader of the House of Commons relating to changes to the Cabinet Office Guide to Parliamentary Work, 10 November 2021; Letter from the Leader of the House of Commons relating to updates to the Guide to Parliamentary Work, 1 December 2021.

84 HM Government (WRP0015)

85 See, for example: Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP (WRP0020), Green Party MPs (WRP0023), and James McMurdock MP (WRP0024).

86 Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP (WRP0020)

87 Q175

88 HM Official Opposition (WRP0014)

89 For examples, see: HM Official Opposition (WRP0014); Government Departments: Advertising PQ 13118, 6 November 2024; and Q102 [Tessa Munt MP].

90 Erskine May, 25th edition, 22.23

91 HC Deb, 4 November 2010, col 1059

92 Cabinet Office, Guide to Parliamentary Work, November 2024 edition, p 54

93 Cabinet Office, Guide to Parliamentary Work, November 2024 edition, p 51

94 HM Official Opposition (WRP0014); Homelessness PQ 14450, 15 November 2024

95 Erskine May, 25th edition, 22.19

96 Q22

97 Table Office, House of Commons (WRP0012)

98 Q170

99 Oral evidence taken on 4 December 2024, Q39

100 HM Official Opposition (WRP0014)

101 HM Government (WRP0015)

102 Q181

103 Q182

104 Cabinet Office, Guide to Parliamentary Work, November 2024 edition, p 51

105 The Assemblée Nationale’s public dashboard is available (in French) at: https://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/dyn/16/questions.

106 Q41

107 The Telegraph, “Five Government departments use AI to draft responses to questions in Parliament”, 31 March 2025

108 Q57

109 Q57

110 Sam Coates Sky (@SamCoatesSky), X (Twitter), 7 January 2026

111 Q14, Q77, Q92

112 HM Official Opposition (WRP0014)

113 The Spectator, “Parliament’s artificial scrutiny”, 8 June 2026

114 Written Questions: Artificial Intelligence PQ 2113, 29 May 2026

115 Erskine May, 25th edition, 22.17