To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what average time his Department took to answer questions for (a) ordinary written answer and (b) written answer on a named day in the last 12 months. (313654)

Between January to December 2009 the Scotland Office:

(a) answered 61 per cent. of 274 ordinary written questions within five sitting days,

(b) answered 93 per cent. of 29 named day questions on the day specified.

With effect from the current Session of Parliament, each Department will provide the Procedure Committee with sessional statistics on the time taken to answer written questions. This implements recommendation 24 of the 3rd report from the Procedure Committee, Session 2008-09.