asked Her Majesty’s Government:
Whether they evaluate the quality of Written Answers in the House of Lords; and whether they have established any variation in quality between departments.
My Lords, under the terms of the Ministerial Code, Ministers are directly accountable to Parliament for the accuracy and relevance of their Answers to Parliamentary Questions. Ministers take their duties to Parliament seriously and ensure as much as possible that Answers are informative, helpful and timely. To try to evaluate the quality of Answers across departments would cut across that direct accountability of Ministers to Parliament.
My Lords, I thank the Lord President for her reply. I know that she is aware of the importance of this matter, so will she undertake to evaluate the different departments to ensure that my recent experience, particularly with the Home Office, is not repeated? You get three kinds of Answers: first, “We do not know but we will not say that”; secondly, “We will not tell you, so we will give you some policy waffle instead”; and, thirdly, in regard to timeliness—and the noble Baroness will have seen on the Order Paper my Question from 5 March, which was eminently answerable—“We will not tell you for such a long time that the Answer will be irrelevant”. Does she accept that this prevents the Opposition from undertaking their perfectly reasonable scrutiny role?
My Lords, if that has been the experience of the noble Baroness, I must apologise on behalf of the Home Office. One of the functions that I have undertaken—as indeed did my predecessors—is to try to ensure that Answers are given within the correct timetable. I do not always succeed, but I certainly try. If the noble Baroness and any other Member of your Lordships’ House bring me examples, I will be more than happy to pursue particular Answers directly. I completely agree with the noble Baroness that it is not acceptable if Answers are not given as fully as possible.
My Lords, the noble Baroness knows of the difficulties that I have had getting Answers from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Environment Agency Wales. How can I get through to them that giving a non-answer is not an Answer? I will keep asking Questions, regardless of the cost to the taxpayer, because if they do not give me the truth—and I know what the truth is because I do not ask Questions without knowing the truth beforehand—they will eventually be found out. As my granny used to say, “Be sure your sins will find you out”.
My Lords, noble friends behind me are asking whether it is the best use of taxpayers’ money to ask Questions to which one already knows the answer. I know of the particular case to which the noble Countess refers and we have tried to deal with it. I reiterate that this is the responsibility of Ministers. As noble Lords will know, the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, has been assiduous over the years in examining this matter. He did me the honour of attending a Front-Bench meeting and making the point clearly that it is the role of your Lordships to hold the Government to account via Questions, debates and so on. My colleagues were keen to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, who put the case very well. If there are issues that noble Lords wish to raise with me, I shall be happy to take them up.
My Lords, does the Leader of the House recognise that, in the previous Session of Parliament, 4,107 Questions out of 5,702 Questions tabled took longer than the 14-day deadline to answer and that, at the end of the Session, 25 Questions were unanswered? These facts have already been revealed. What do the Government propose to do to deal with this untimeliness of Answers?
My Lords, I have sought to deal with it within my private office by making sure that, when the Answer to a Question is overdue, the department and the Minister are notified. Noble Lords who have been in departments will know that a process has to be gone through, which relies on civil servants, and often other Ministers who are not in your Lordships’ House, to clear and deal with policy Questions. As noble Lords will know, sometimes Questions are complicated. In the 1996-97 Session, there was a total of 1,247 Questions. That figure has now risen to 5,702 Questions, so there is also the issue that we have to deal with many more Questions. That is a good thing—it is a sign of a healthy House of Lords in operation—but it puts on pressure. It is no excuse, but I wanted to mention that in passing.
My Lords, is there any distinction in the treatment by departmental officials of Questions asked by Members of Parliament in Parliament as against Questions asked by Members of Parliament under the Freedom of Information Act?
My Lords, it is, of course, a different regime, as my noble friend will know. The two processes are not the same. The rules on Parliamentary Questions are very clear. There is a code for civil servants. Part of the Ministerial Code is that Ministers should answer their colleagues in Parliament as accurately, in as timely a way and as appropriately as possible. That is the basis on which Questions are answered in your Lordships’ House.
My Lords, the Ministerial Code requires Ministers to give accurate and truthful information to Parliament but does not mention the completeness of the Answer. Surely the Lord President would agree with me that there is a case for amending the code to prohibit omission in answering PQs.
My Lords, if one is answering accurately, surely that would deal with the issue of omission. If noble Lords would like to bring me examples of where they think that things have been omitted, I will be more than happy to look at them. My personal view—and the way in which I have always acted as a Minister, or tried to—is that Ministers should give the information that actually answers the Questions that have been put before them as far as they are able to within the inevitable constraints that exist. If noble Lords have examples, my colleagues would like to know what they are as well.
My Lords, the Leader of the House said in an earlier reply that information had to be got from Ministers in another place. Is she not aware that all Ministers in this House are answerable for the Government as a whole and not just for their departments?
Yes, my Lords, that had not escaped me. I said that, in order to make sure that the information is accurate, Ministers who have policy responsibility in another place are required to clear the Answer, as the noble Lord knows. I take responsibility for all departments in your Lordships’ House but I would not pretend that I had at my fingertips the detail of every aspect of government policy. Surely the most obvious thing to do in those circumstances is to ask the colleague who has responsibility to make sure that the information is accurate.