Good morning, and welcome to this public session of the Procedure Committee. Written parliamentary questions, or WPQs for short, are an important tool for MPs in raising matters of public interest and dealing with much of their constituency work. Over the past few months, we have been inquiring into the whole WPQ system, and we have taken lots of interesting evidence so far. Today we are putting some of that to the Leader of the House of Commons to hear more about the Government’s view. We are therefore very pleased to be joined this morning by the Leader of the House, Sir Alan Campbell. Good morning to you, Sir Alan. Before we begin, would you introduce yourself for the record?

I am Alan Campbell, Leader of the House.

Thank you for your time. As is traditional, the first question comes from me. “Erskine May” gives the purpose of WPQs as being to “obtain information or press for action”. Is that what they are still used for today, or has their underlying purpose changed?

First, thank you for inviting me, and thank you also for your inquiry, which I look forward to seeing the conclusions of, because I think that will inform a wider debate about WPQs. It is really important that Members can ask written parliamentary questions, and I think the fundamental importance, as set out by “Erskine May”—obtaining information and pressing for action—remains the same. However, I share a wider concern that the system has clearly expanded significantly and probably beyond the original definition in “Erskine May” of what WPQs are for. I think it has expanded for all sorts of reasons, but in recent times the numbers have increased considerably, and that would suggest that the purpose has altered.

How have you used WPQs during your time in the House? There have obviously been points, such as now, where you would not necessarily be using them, but did you use them widely as a Back Bencher?

I did not use them widely. I would use them as part of a wider campaign and perhaps over a longer period to get information in a timely fashion. That was almost exclusively about constituency matters. I was not necessarily asking the same question, but instead looking at what people were asking about their constituencies and getting ideas for campaigns. I think that was widely used. In terms of the number of PQs, I do not think that people put down enormous numbers of questions until much later after I joined the House. However, I think the nature the MP’s role has altered significantly in that time too, and for all sorts of reasons that has had an effect on written parliamentary questions.

One thing that has changed in your time as a Member of the House is that, historically, it was the Member themselves who would take the lead and table questions. We now have the MemberHub system where we can nominate a proxy—a member of our staff—to table questions on our behalf. Do you think that that is appropriate, or should it change?

One thing that should not change is that Members should be responsible for the questions asked—whether they put them down themselves, or someone in their office acts as a proxy for them. I have no evidence for this, but I worry slightly in case it spread beyond proxies and Members were using parliamentary questions to do other than just their constituency work and run their constituency office. I have no evidence of that, but it is one of the suspicions around. It is very important that MPs take responsibility for that. This might not be what lots of Members want to hear, but I also think they need to focus carefully on using written parliamentary questions, for want of a better word, in a “responsible” way. I am sure we will explore some of these points later, but that is not least because these things are not without a cost to the taxpayer. One does wonder, when looking at some of written parliamentary questions, whether people looking from outside would think they were worth the money it costs to answer them.

If there were evidence that third parties, beyond a Member and their staff, were tabling WPQs, would that be inappropriate?

That would be entirely inappropriate. It would be wrong, and people would have to be careful they did not fall foul of the other rules of the House. As I said, I have no evidence of that. One feature of modern MPs is that they are much more focused on campaigning than was perhaps the case three decades ago, and I think parliamentary questions are very much seen as part of that. There are aspects of the written parliamentary question system that allow people to pile in and ask lots of questions, and some of those issues might need to be addressed. I also think the expectations of MPs have changed. I sometimes think there is a bit of a questions arms race taking place: the more questions you have asked, the better you are as an MP. That is just not true. If anything, we should focus on the quality of questions rather than the quantity. MPs and their offices need to make that decision before they embark on what sometimes looks like a fishing expedition.

Volumes of WPQs have increased significantly in this Parliament. Why do think that has been the case? You alluded there to lots of reasons, such as campaigning and the changed role of MPs. Is there anything else that has caused this upsurge in WPQs?

Again, I have no concrete evidence for this— although it is certainly worth considering, and it is not a criticism by any means—but a figure I have quoted before is that 80% of the Members of the House of Commons have less than six years’ experience. I cannot remember a time when there has been such a churn in the number of MPs. That means that, as people try to find their feet and the issues they want to concentrate on, they may be using written parliamentary questions as a way to make that happen. We also have to consider whether Members and their offices have sufficient information about what a written parliamentary question is for, to ensure that if they are using them, they are using them sparingly to some extent. I also think there are traditional forces at play, and I do not use this as a criticism, because we have done it in the past. There is a bit of a trick in opposition, which is to put down as many written parliamentary questions as you can get, because one purpose of opposition is to tire the Government and Ministers out. When I was a Minister in the Home Office, I would make sure that no parliamentary question asked of me went out without my seeing it and signing it off. I still think that that is the best way of doing it. Imagine the situation if you are a Health Minister: the number of PQs you have got in the last two years has doubled, or whatever the numbers are. So there are all sorts of things that used to be at play, which are maybe still there, but there are new factors, too.

What impact has this had on the Government, and what actions have they taken to meet this increased demand?

It has had a big effect on Government, but also on the House. I do not think they are separate things. Working out the best way forward for written parliamentary questions is a challenge for Government, but it is also a question for the House. I am not here to answer questions for the House in detail, because I am sure they will be looking at their procedures. From a Government point of view, we are very keen—and your Committee is good at helping us on this—on pointing out where the performance of Departments is not very good. You might ask, “With what effect?” but I am constantly saying to Departments that they need to improve their performance. I think you have had evidence from Ministers who have acknowledged that, and some of the responsibility does lie with Departments. There are a number of reasons why Departments need to look at what they do. Since I became Leader of the House, I have dealt with various aspects of Departments, from permanent secretaries down to parliamentary clerks, and in my experience some need to give greater precedence and importance to answering questions. Some Departments are very good at that, but the volume of questions means that some are being somewhat overwhelmed, and with fair reason. The Cabinet Office is looking at how things can improve across Government, without losing sight of where we started, which is the right of Members to ask questions. But I also think we need to look at the system of answering questions to see if there is anything that can improve. If there is an increased flow, we can do things to perhaps stretch that flow out so you do not get the huge increase in volume at particular times. If I were a Minister, I would be horrified to open my red box and see hundreds of parliamentary questions.

I think Tracy wanted to probe that a little further.

You just touched on what adaptions may be made across Whitehall if the number of questions we are getting through becomes the new business as normal? Can you tell us a little more about what actions are already being taken to try and address that?

I do not think we should necessarily accept that this is business as normal. If we do, I do not think our meeting today will necessarily be the high point of PQs in terms of volume. I do not know whether this increase can continue. We do need to address some of the structural aspects of PQs, and that is why I look forward to your report. We are saying to Departments and Ministers that they are responsible for dealing with the PQs that come through the door, but I am sure you have had Ministers coming to you and setting out the ministerial viewpoint on all of this, and we should be sympathetic to a large extent to what they are doing. I also think the House needs to look at how it deals with questions. I seem to remember—without rose-tinted spectacles—that there was a time when the Table Office was a bit more of a filter than it maybe is at the minute. That is not a criticism of the Clerks, if they are dealing with a high volume of questions coming in, but it used to be more difficult to get your parliamentary question on to the Order Paper and get an answer than it appears to be now. I don’t think they are choosing an easy option, but it does seem relatively straightforward. Members’ offices will look at that and think, “This is an opportunity to see where I can get to and what I can get back by going down that route.” So it is about a whole-Government response in looking at this and about holding Departments to account, but ultimately it is also about how Departments are set up and how ministerial teams make answering questions a priority. That is part of a wider issue about how Departments, Ministers and the Government see Parliament.

You referred earlier to the cost of WPQs to the taxpayer. In the Government’s written evidence, you said that back in 2012 it was about £164 per response. Have you any idea what it would be today, in 2026?

Unfortunately, I cannot give you that answer, and I am slightly frustrated about that. I know that the Cabinet Office is looking at it and is going to come up with a better answer. All we have been able to do so far is take the £164 and see what it would mean in today’s money if you increase it by inflation, and the figure we are working with is about £230. The other figure that comes into play, of course, is the £850, in terms of whether it costs more than that to answer. Even if you take the £230, my suspicion is that it is a bit low; I think it will be more than that. If you multiply that by the number of questions that the Department of Health and Social Care gets every year, it gives you an eye-watering figure. Although waiting lists are coming down, I think my constituents waiting for an operation might be asking why it is costing millions of pounds to answer all these questions, rather than that money being used differently.

You say it is an eye-watering figure. Do you have a sense of how much the annual cost of WPQs would be at the moment?

For Health, off the top of my head, I think it is over £1 million. I might be wrong, but I will find out and write to you.

That would be helpful. Thank you; that’s smashing. Moving on to the current limit, what is your view on the limit of 20 WPQs per day on MemberHub?

I would like some consistency across that. I am not sure that that is where the vast increase in questions is coming from. I think part of that—and we are heading towards a summer recess—is where those limits are taken off. That causes a problem, not least because of the way some Departments naturally work. It will be a while before Ministers see the answers going out in their name, and there will be a big bulge. There is a case—it is up to you to come up with recommendations—for having a similar amount, whether the House is sitting or in recess. I do not know whether 20 is too many, but I wonder whether there is a case for equalising the number that you need to go in and physically, hard copy deliver, compared with what is done electronically. We live our lives by electronic means, even if I do not understand it all, and that affects the number of questions that can go down and the ease with which that can be done. It also affects the way people perceive they can get answers back. I think we need to pause and have a look at that.

Is there any evidence you have seen around the quality versus quantity—those who put in significant numbers versus fewer?

Very few Members around the table will remember, but this whole debate started when the then young John Bercow arrived and put down half a million pounds-worth of questions in the first few months. At that point, the brake was applied, and we have lived with that system to some extent since. Whether the brake needs to be applied again, I do not know. I would reflect not just on the quality aspect, but on whether we are getting value for money. Even if the figure is £230, I find it hard to justify spending £230 to find out which budget the cat flap from No. 10 came from. We need to look at that. We all know what is happening; as I said, people are fishing for tomorrow’s headline, but I am not sure that that is the best use of money.

The Leader of the House makes an interesting point, but he also knows that I could put in an FOI request on the cat flap. You cannot really have a situation where there is a disparity. A Member should be able to establish that; otherwise, you are saying that Members should be less equal in their access to information.

No. I do know whether we will get on to it, but there is an interesting discussion around whether to go down the WPQ route or the FOI route, and why there is a discrepancy. We can talk about that later. I am also not naive. A closing down of written parliamentary questions is exactly what we do not need; we do not need to shut them down, but it is time to look at them. If an office is sitting thinking, “I have got my quota of written parliamentary questions for this week. What can I do to find out more about a constituency case? I will write to a Minister.” Let us not pretend that is easy either, because I regularly get complaints in business questions about not just getting timely responses to correspondence, but sometimes getting a response at all and getting it in good form. I take your point exactly. I just think that people looking at this from outside might ask, “Is the money being spent actually being spent properly?” MPs should be thinking, “If there’s £230 to spend on a question, is it the best use of that for my constituents to ask about the No. 10 cat flap?” That is a reasonable question for them to ask.

You have touched on this a bit already, but we wanted to probe the WPQ situation during recess, because some of the evidence we have is about the dramatic rises in that period. You indicated that a limit during recess might be a good idea. Have I understood you correctly?

I think there is a case for saying that there should not be a difference necessarily between recess and when the House is sitting, partly because if there is a self-imposed responsibility aspect to all of this, that should apply whether the House is in recess or not. I think that MPs and their offices now, by and large, probably use recess differently from the way it was used 30 or 40 years ago. When we came in in ’97, there was still the long summer recess without the September return, so you would leave in July and come back after the conferences. No disrespect to MPs at the time, but I suspect they saw it as a break to get out and meet people in their constituencies. I am not sure they saw it in the campaigning way that MPs see it now. I think MPs now are looking to continue how they work when the House is sitting. But I cannot see the case—unless there is a good case—for saying that that should account for a massive increase in written parliamentary questions over the recess. I just do not see why that should be the case.

Should there be any particular limit? We are looking at what options there might be and whether that would apply to the whole recess or on a daily basis, as it does with the 20 per sitting day.

I think if you looked at it across the whole recess and there was a number. One of the other things is that recess for MPs is not a case of finishing on 16 July and not doing any politics until 1 September; that is just not how MPs work. You are entitled to an annual break, but that is not how MPs work, and it has not been for some time, frankly. I do not see why there should not be consistency between when the House is sitting and when it is not sitting. I think there is a case for looking at when replies come during recess. I think there should be more stopping-off points for when answers will be published or whatever else, because Ministers do not disappear for the summer either—they are at least in touch with their Departments if they are not in their Departments, so they are able to continue to do this. If we see it as an annual thing rather than broken down into bits, part of the answer lies there.

Something else I wanted to touch on is the publication at the end of recess—particularly the long recess—when the telephone directory arrives of all the questions. Would it make sense to have more regular publishing of questions during that period?

There is a case for that. If I was in a Department, I would probably welcome that, because the reality is that when I come back after recess to start the new term, I am going to be faced with a mountain of PQs, but the new batch is going to start again—the bath is pretty full, but the tap starts again. I do think there is a case for looking at that.

Do you think, that under the current system, there is a risk of Ministers answering questions that are out of date? If I submit one on the first day of the recess, the world could have moved on by the time we get back in September.

Absolutely. That is the issue with timely responses to correspondence. It is not just about the decency of going back to your constituents with a timely response; it is whether the response is timely in the context of why it was asked in the first place. The world does move on, and it moves on politically quite quickly. I think there is a case for looking at that. It is entirely up to you what conclusions you draw, but I think there is a case for looking at it.

We have heard from some witnesses that the rules of order for written PQs are too prescriptive and that we should look at more questions getting through to Ministers for them to address. What is your view on that?

I think there is a case, but I do not have a strong view. I think there is a case for looking at whether we need a distinction between named day questions and ordinary questions. Given the increased volumes, I do not know whether that distorts the performance of Departments if you are working to that sometimes artificial deadline. The problem with my argument there is, how do you get the quick answer? If you said that it would take 10 days, 20 days or whatever it was to get an answer, and I wanted to get an answer really quickly, I am not sure, but I would probably go down the named day route. It is quite interesting that some MPs only do named day questions—there are one or two MPs who literally only do named day questions. I do not understand whether the rules have not quite got through or whether they have 200 really timely things that they need responses on. Maybe they are using it responsibly, but it is interesting that there is an inconsistency in the way in which people do that. I think there is a case for that, because, of course, in the Lords it is different, and in other legislatures it is different as well. It is not just about the quantity; it is, to some extent, about the equality too. What was the other part of your question?

It was about whether the Table Office’s rules of order on whether the questions filter through in the first place are too prescriptive.

I think there is a case for being stricter about what needs to go through, particularly if the answer can be easily found somewhere else. If I were going to the Table Office and putting down questions, I would expect that they could tell me, “Actually, if you walk along the corridor to the Library, you can get that answer there.” There is a huge resource here. MPs’ offices are a resource too. There are lots of ways in which you can get answers to questions, so I would expect there to be a fairly tough approach to that. If PQs get through, they might need to reach a slightly higher bar than they do now—I don’t know.

It is quite interesting that you mention a higher bar. A lot of Back-Bench MPs would say that the Table Office is almost too restrictive. They would probably make a counterargument to the one you made. There is often a specific complaint about the requirement for WPQs to have a concrete, factual basis. You and I have both been in government. You sometimes have what is quite obviously a Government briefing in the newspapers that has been reported on because a special adviser has briefed it into the newspapers. It is not unheard of in any sort of Government for things to be pre-trailed. That is not counted as a factual basis, even though it might have been on the front page of The Times. Is there a danger that Parliament has been stymied, even though these things obviously come from the Department and the Minister?

Putting aside the wider argument, which I know the Speaker is particularly keen on, namely that if Departments are going to make an announcement, it should be made to Parliament first—or at the earliest opportunity; that is probably where we are going to get to—and urgent questions and statements are there so that there are other ways of doing that, I suppose the bottom line is that if you read something in The Times about what a Government Department intends to do, that is not necessarily a fact.

It is a reported basis, isn’t it?

Well, I don’t know. Let’s speculate a bit. If one of the purposes of putting a question down is to press for action, could you not construct a question like, “Given what I’ve just read in The Times, I want to know what the Government intend to do about x”?. Would that not pass the bar?

There have been challenges with Members who have been using as a basis something that looks as if it is an intent and a direction of Ministers, and that not quite passing the bar. You make some important points about making sure that the question process is valid. If something is being reported in the media quite widely as a direction of Government or a policy that is going to be implemented, we do not want to close off Members’ ability to make sure that the questions are valid and current.

No, we don’t; that is absolutely right. That is why there is a balance here. It is not for me to tell you how to do your job, but when the Committee looks at this, I think it is important to establish where that balance is. I am not ducking your question directly, but I suppose I am indirectly. I am not sure that is at the forefront of my mind. If you gave me that example, I would probably agree that that could be looked at. I am talking about parliamentary questions that are blatantly unnecessary. If I want to find out how many GP surgeries there are in Tynemouth constituency, I can find out without putting a question down to the Department of Health and Social Care. If I want to know how much the cat flap cost—well, I do not want to know that, frankly. There are things we could start with. I would not necessarily start with that, but it is an interesting question. I do not know the answer to it.

Picking up on Gavin’s question, the world of academia has very much updated how it reflects and how it takes on arguments that come from social media or from various web sources. Is it time to update “Erskine May” so that it is more reflective of what the current information sources are, rather than where it sits in the more traditional sense?

Again, I am not sure of the answer to that. I am in favour of looking at the parameters around questions, if necessary. It is not just about them being constrained, but about whether they are relevant. We need to reflect the outside world, too, but we cannot get away from the prism of MPs’ offices and the MPs’ role in all of this. I know you are not suggesting this, but I would be slightly nervous about opening it up so that people other than those from MPs’ offices will think, “Well, this is a good way to get the information I want.” I am not sure that that is an answer to your question.

No, but thank you.

We have heard that there can be some ambiguity around Government blocks that are put in place on certain topics, and that that can be frustrating for Members. How could the Government be more effective at explaining the extent of those blocks directly to MPs?

The idea of blocks is a long-standing response, particularly when there are repetitive questions, and it is right that people can be pointed elsewhere. I always think that there is a case for more information rather than less, if it helps, and explaining why a question has been blocked is interesting to explore. But the fundamental question is one for the Committee rather than for me: how can the Government provide clarity on the use of blocks? It is probably easier to say than to do, but it would be interesting to see the Committee consider that. My answer in a wider sense is that 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.

There is a cause for concern, or a query, over whether AI is used to generate questions in the first instance. Going back to the beginning, that may be one reason why we are getting more and more questions. In terms of responses, Government Departments have an AI playbook that sets out exactly what they are able to do, including, I assume, in relation to questions. Ultimately, what goes into responses is the responsibility of the Minister, and it is for the Department to make sure that somebody else is not generating them and signing them off. It is a question for the Minister. I assume we all use AI—even me, to some extent—and we will be using it in the future. It would be odd to say that Government Departments cannot or do not use AI; I would expect them to. To some extent, I would expect AI to play a role in modernising public services, of which we are one, and for that role to increase in the future, but it is not a substitute for Ministers. Getting that information into the right form and having Ministers sign it off is therefore the right way forward.

I think this is the answer, and I expect Ministers to do this now. Ultimately, they are the person who agrees the sign-off of the letter. It might be a fairly swift process of trusting your office to put something in front of you to sign off, but Ministers need to write the response, be cognisant and ask, "Where did this come from? Where is the source?" Whatever a Minister signs off, a copy is kept: that information stays there and they are responsible for it. A responsible Minister will not have something signed off for them; they will do it themselves. They are the final arbiter and the final judge of what goes out.

When a WPQ is transferred to a different Department for an answer, how do the Government arrange it? Could it be done more efficiently? The Government have cited the need for transfers as the reason for the delays.

I think it might well be a reason for delay. To be entirely frank, I do not think that Government—not just this Government, but Government—do this particularly well. Given the increased volume of questions, it is an increasing challenge. People may complain that their question has been transferred when it should not have been transferred, or that it has been lost in the system. If the number of PQs increases, the number of times that happens will increase significantly as well. I do not think that we have got this right across Government, but we are looking at how best it can be done. At the least, Departments should work together better and perhaps be more receptive; if something comes in that is borderline, I think they should take it. That is easy for me to say, sitting here, but I think that is where Departments should be. Whether we need anything more systematic to make sure that it gets to the right place is a matter not just for the Government but for the House, but it is one area that needs to be considered.

We have heard that Members are not particularly bothered about where the answer comes from; the issue is that it can sometimes take so long.

But earlier on in the process, if the wording of the question were clearer, perhaps it would be clearer where that question should go. If you put down a question that cuts across Departments—obviously, there are cross-departmental issues, and Government deal with those in all sorts of ways in policymaking terms—do not be surprised if it is passed between Departments as they work out which Department is most responsible for that answer. Unsurprisingly, the natural instinct of a Department may well be to say, “Not us,” unless it is proven that it is them.

I suppose the easy answer, which might nevertheless be true, is that it is because of the pressure that has built up, given the number of PQs that are coming in. As I have said, there is no doubt that some Departments feel under much more pressure and are having to find a way of dealing with that. The reality is that the quality of answers provided to Members is of at least equal importance to the timeliness of the response. They should be answering them in a timely fashion, but also in as full and frank a way as possible. We are constantly reminding Departments, especially where they are not performing particularly well, that that is their responsibility. It should not be the case that whoever deals with a WPQ looks for the easiest way to avoid it. Just because the information is available elsewhere, that is not necessarily a good reason for not putting it into an answer to a written parliamentary question. But it may be a quick version of saying, “I’ve got all of these to do. How many can I push over here to somebody else?” We have talked a little bit about grouping, where you have the same question or a question on a similar topic. 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. We have also talked a little about cross-cutting. That should not be an excuse for a particular Department not to take the question and give as full a response as it possibly can. It is about the culture of answering, and the culture of how people and Departments see this place and how they see MPs and their work. There is still some work to be done in getting Departments up to speed on that. Given the volume of PQs, it must just be seen as an avalanche—“How on earth do we deal with all this?” Some Departments do not have that problem, but some do.

Let me get to that in a moment. I have said that it is a departmental responsibility to do this properly. That should remain, because Departments are part of Government, to some extent, but they have their own independent role to play. As we have said, the Cabinet Office is looking at this, because ultimately it is going to be looking at performance across the piece. I do hold individual Departments to account. I frequently say to them, either all at the same time or individually, that their performance is not good enough. Of course, one of the best ways to get an answer to a particular WPQ, as people have worked out, is to come along on a Thursday morning and ask me at business questions. Please do not take that as an encouragement, but it can help. My proper answer, though, is that it should not come down to that: if you can get an answer to a WPQ because someone got up at business questions the previous Thursday, it is not right that you were not getting it already, because it sounds as if it was ready. I do not think it is for me alone to do that. I think it is a departmental responsibility; it is a cross-Government responsibility, and the Cabinet Office will continue to want to look at that; and frankly it is a House responsibility too, which is why I very much welcome this inquiry.

It is tricky—there are timelines, and if people fall foul of them they are held to account—but I gently say to colleagues that if there is a rush to get something out the door and it is not really an answer to the question, it will come back. It is a bit short-sighted to take that approach, because it will come back as another question, as a question in the Chamber or as a piece of correspondence. It is not going to go away. But that is easy for me to say: I get WPQs, but they are a fraction of what other Departments get. We do very well, but we are not coping with that volume. They are not doing it deliberately, but I say to colleagues that it is short-sighted if the information that goes out is not a full answer. It is just short-sighted. You need to do the best you can. Going back a bit, if we can moderate the “tap filling up the bath” situation, people might get better answers.

Can I start by saying thank you? Don’t look too uneasy! As Back-Bench MPs we all appreciate the opportunity at business questions sometimes to use your good offices to give things a nudge and a bit of a help. Even though it probably sometimes feels a bit of a thankless task—especially for your officials, who then have to chase things up—it is appreciated. There is one thing that I am slightly curious about—and I have sort of seen it from the other side. Yes, of course Departments have an awful influx of questions and everything else. We often ask Ministers from poorer performing Departments to come along and explain, and as the Secretary of State you usually—possibly—select the Minister you care the least about or the most junior Minister to trot along to the Committee. But the issue is also one of resourcing, and you know as well as I do that the junior Minister for whatever has very little say over the overall resourcing, especially when it comes to things outside their area, which they largely will be, because they will be decisions for the Secretary of State and the permanent secretary. Do you think it be useful to have sat beside that junior Minister the Department’s permanent secretary? As much as we value their work, civil servants do not always put as much priority on dealing with parliamentary matters. We have sometimes seen that issue in the development of Bills, and I imagine that you have the same challenges that I used to have in PBL. That might bring a sharper focus to prioritisation, and I suggest it as an idea to make things work better.

I am slightly nervous because I used to get a lot of the questions to answer at the Home Office—clearly, I was not liked by the Home Secretary—[Laughter.]

Where are they now?

No, that’s not true. In that situation it was spread across Ministers, and I think that is the right approach to take.

Sorry, I meant when they come to the Committee.

I may regret saying this if I meet up with permanent secretaries, but I agree absolutely with what you say. I think it is really interesting. We have some great permanent secretaries, don’t get me wrong, but it is to do with the way in which MPs and Parliament are regarded by Government—not just this Government but any Government. That is a constant battle that we need to have. Sometimes it is just a case of explaining to them how things are seen by MPs and how MPs ultimately can be very helpful in these situations. They are doing what they have been sent to do on behalf of their constituents. My view is that you get better government, and you certainly get better policy, if you are open in that sense and you engage with MPs. One thing I noticed when I pulled together the parliamentary teams—the people who spend their time not just on legislation but on answering questions—is that, with no disrespect to them, they kind of came out blinking from the darkened cave. Nobody had asked them before what they do and what could be done to make their lives better. They have enormous experience across Government. Sometimes it does come down to resource and, as you know, a Secretary of State will have enormous pressure on their Department. To say, “We’re going to have to look carefully at the schools budget because we’re going to be spending half a million pounds answering MPs’ questions” is tricky, but a balance needs to be struck. I do think it would be interesting, if you are inviting Ministers, to get officials along with them. You were a Chief Whip, and you would have wanted to get your Ministers across to vote. Getting Ministers across to vote and getting past the diary secretaries—wonderful people though they are—is sometimes an enormous challenge. The chasm between Government Departments and Parliament is much more than just the physical distance; it is about getting Departments to understand that Ministers are accountable to this place. Sometimes, you end up with Ministers who buy into that too and ask, “Why? I don’t really understand why these questions have to be answered.” It is because that is what MPs need to be able to do their job. On the other hand, it is one of the great benefits that Ministers are MPs, and therefore they have seen this. They should have some empathy for what is happening over here. I think that is a really good idea. I have said it before, but it is challenging a culture. They are not bad people, and they have not invented a culture to avoid scrutiny—well, not entirely. They are good people, but it is not their priority. Well, let’s make it more of a priority for them and, at the same time, be able to explain to MPs why it cannot be a perfect world because Secretaries of State have lots of other things to do—tackling emergency situations, coming up with legislation and all those things. It is about having a better understanding, I think.

You will be aware that this is one of the two inquiries we currently have open into written parliamentary questions. We do a regular inquiry, which is more of a numbers exercise, whereby we recognise that some Departments are much better at answering questions in a timely manner than others. Every time, we bring the worst offenders—the ones that are struggling the most—before our Committee to explain themselves. All Departments have seen a huge rise in the numbers of WPQs, yet some Departments are still able to meet the timely response part of it and others are really struggling. What are your thoughts on why that is, and what do you think is the solution?

First of all, with respect, I think it is important that you continue to do that. Even if some of them are struggling, knowing that there are clear targets about what they should be doing is important, until the targets change or the situation changes. It is uncomfortable for Ministers and Departments, presumably, but it is really important that you continue to do that, because it is an important check in the system. The answer to your question—we have discussed some of the aspects—is that there is a problem for some Departments with the quantity of questions coming through. If there has been a 93% increase in the previous 12 months, that is an incredible situation, which Departments will find difficult. If every Department was faced with a similar situation, there could be an easier way through, but they are not. Some Departments are just inundated with questions, so looking at how they handle that and fulfil their commitments at the same time is a challenge for individual Departments as well. Even if your recommendations get to a situation where the flow slows a little, and some of the rule changes mean that the way they do it is more straightforward, I suspect that there will still be some issues in Departments that will be institutionally poorer performers, and that is about the Department. It goes back to what Gavin said earlier: it is about letting Departments know that they will be held to account for this and that they need to improve their performance, not because they are coming in front of us or you alone, although that should be an incentive to improve their performance, or because they will be named and shamed; they should just be doing it, frankly. I think there is a case. It is interesting where the Cabinet Office will get on this, if they are looking across Government, to see what they can do to help the situation.

Is there any sense of best practice being shared across Departments? Some Departments have seen a huge spike but have managed to keep on top of it, whereas others have not. I appreciate that there is a variation in numbers, but is best practice being shared?

I cannot give you examples of that sharing of information, but it will be happening, not least because to some extent there is a flow of Ministers from one Department to another. It is interesting, when you look within Departments as well as between Departments, that some Ministers manage to answer 80% on time and others struggle to get to 50% on time. There is a battle within Departments as well as between Departments. Is there a handbook on best practice? If there is, I have not seen it. Should there be one? Possibly.

Alan, you touched on this in a previous answer to Gavin, but we have heard from witnesses concerns about getting information via an FOI request but not getting it via an answer to a written PQ. In their response to the written evidence, the Government acknowledged some inconsistencies in this area. Is that something that you could expand on? Do you have any thoughts about why this continues to happen?

First of all, there shouldn’t be inconsistencies—let me be absolutely clear about that—whether it is a written question or information given under an FOI. But as you say, the Government have recognised that there is inconsistency, and we do again remind Departments of their obligations in this regard. I inquired with my team about some of the reasons why that might happen. To some extent, it is because they are dealt with in two separate systems, and sometimes the time limit is different. If it were a named day question, which has however many days, and an FOI, which has an increased number of days, it would not be surprising if there was a difference in the information provided, because in the first case it would be what you could put together in four days, and in the other you would have a bit longer. I do not think that should be the case, but I think it is just a practical reality of where we are. The interaction between those is set out in the “Guide to Parliamentary Work”, which is produced by my office, so Departments should know about that. We have worked with this Committee on the guidance in the past, so I would be quite happy to continue to do so.

I just wonder whether it is that some Departments might have a separate freedom of information officer, who may not—

Maybe. It is that lack of consistency, isn’t it? Well, let’s be honest—we will pretend that this is just between us—there are some questions that will go into Departments where you need to be a bit more careful about the answer that you put out there, aren’t there? That is just the reality of the world in which we work. 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?” Maybe I shouldn’t have said that, but I think that is probably the reality.

Well, it’s said now.

Moving on to ordinary questions and named day questions, do you think that the Government’s poor response times to ordinary questions drives up the number of named day questions that are tabled?

There will certainly be examples of that. That is why I mentioned earlier that I think it is an interesting discussion—although it is up to you—whether there needs to be a distinction. As I said before, it is about getting timely answers. If named day questions are used in order to get quicker answers, we have talked about the situation and the context altering before the answer comes out, and I think that is a bit of a dilemma, really. So yes, I do think that will probably happen, but, again, if it is not a named day question, it will be something else. To some extent, that is the work. When somebody gets up and makes a point of order to the Speaker and says, “Mr Speaker, I asked this question and I haven’t got an answer,” or whatever else, the Speaker will usually say, “The hon. Member has been here long enough, and they know the procedures of this place in order to get an answer.” And he is right, because there is usually a procedure to get the answer that you want. For somebody to drag their heels in all this is a bit short-sighted, if I am honest, because it is going to lead to a named day question, to somebody asking me at business questions in the hope that I can supercharge it, to an on-the-record question, or, as I have said before, to an email or letter to the Department—or simply to a resubmission of the question. It is not going to go away. MPs are like terriers with bones sometimes, aren’t they? They are not going to give up in that regard, and therefore they will get a better answer at some point.

You may not have any more to say on this, but named day questions are there with the intent that they are for really important questions on behalf of residents or constituents that you want answering really urgently. Do you think that MPs are using named day questions in line with that original intent, or do you think there is something else driving their use of them?

I have no doubt that some will be, for the very reason that you have given. I have seen lists of people who have put down questions, and they have just put down named day questions, or 95% of what they are doing is named day questions. As I said before, that may be because they are dealing with that number of cases and they need urgent answers—that might be true—but I suspect, when you look at the numbers, that that is probably not true. I do not know whether there is a lack of awareness of the different routes and therefore what they ought to be doing. Is it an education question about whether people need to be made more aware of that, or is it simply a case of, “Is there a better way of doing it?” In the House of Lords, where I do not think they have the distinction, it would be interesting to know what effect that has had on when questions are answered. Does everything drift sideways because there is no named day deadline, or is the question answered in a timely way anyway? I do not know the answer to that. There are other ways—and this is a question that Modernisation will be looking at, I think—in which you could think about raising issues on the Floor of the House that you might otherwise put a PQ down for. In a number of Parliaments, there is a part of the day—outside urgent questions or whatever—when you can basically get up to ask a question and get an answer. It is an interesting question.

Following on from that, in the Government’s written evidence to the Committee, you talked about the simplification of the system. Last week, we had Education Minister Josh MacAlister before us, and he was advocating abolishing the idea of named day questions and just having ordinary questions. When you talk in your written evidence about simplification of the system, what does that involve? Might it involve removing the distinction between named day and ordinary questions?

It could do, but, with respect, it is for this Committee to consider whether that is a good idea. I do not have a hard-and-fast view, because of what I have been alluding to, which is that if I were an MP who wanted an urgent answer, I would be slightly worried if people took the longer timescale as the norm, rather than the shorter timescale for named day questions. I do not know whether we would just go back and reinvent the wheel, and end up in the same place, but I think Josh is right to the extent that it should be looked at. He gave you a departmental view, I suppose—I am answering my own question—but it would be interesting to get a response from Departments as to whether they thought it would make a difference to what they are doing, or whether there are some more fundamental or institutional reasons why it would not matter whether you got rid of that distinction, and you might still end up struggling to get answers out the door on time.

Gavin, did you want to come in?

I just got very excited about the innovation that you were proposing on the PQ side of things. What if you were given a bit of freedom? On some days, business falls short—we could have a long debate about whether the Backbench Business Committee properly programmes things as well as it should do, but we had best not trample on that just here. If you did something like that, how would you envisage it working? Would it be something spontaneous, or a little more controlled?

It is not an innovation in the sense that any decisions have been made—not by a long shot—but it is something that I think will be pitched to Modernisation at some point in the future to look at. We are doing a study on the use of time, which at the minute is concentrating on the Backbench Business Committee and the Petitions Committee—your Chair joined us yesterday as part of that inquiry, and was very welcome—because there is this issue that topicality is really important. You and I have seen that. It has always been important, but it seems to be more important now with a changing news cycle, media cycle and everything else. That is why we have topical questions, except if you look at topical questions, they are not, I suspect, topical in the way they were envisaged to be. I have no concrete examples to give you, except that I have been told that in some Parliaments, there is part of a day when people can raise whatever they want—frankly, I suppose we call it business questions, on a Thursday, when you can raise just about anything you want. But we cannot just keep adding to the day. Part of looking at the use of time is to look at how we use time better, and there are things that were set up in order to give that topicality and immediacy to what we are doing that are not necessarily working in the way that we thought they would. Where I hope to get to—and this might be in the mix—is to come up with some options about what a day might look like. That might prevent a situation where MPs have to find an ingenious way to get into a debate to make the points that they want to make. If MPs want their minute or 90 seconds for social media that day, to demonstrate that they have been campaigning and raising issues on behalf of their constituents, there are many ways in which they can do that.

Thank you so much for your time this morning.

You are very welcome.

That draws us to the end of our questions.