Parliamentary Questions

Mr. Laws
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many parliamentary written questions his Department received in each parliamentary Session since 2001; and how many of these questions (a) were not answered because of disproportionate cost, (b) were not answered, (c) received answers referring back to a previous answer(i) asked by the hon. Member and (ii) asked by another hon. Member and (d) were grouped together for answer.

Mr. McNulty
The information requested can be provided only at disproportionate cost.

Mr. Laws
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what target his Department has for the maximum acceptable amount of time to answer parliamentary written questions; and what percentage of parliamentary answers met that target in each parliamentary Session since 2001.

Mr. McNulty
The Department aims to answer parliamentary questions within the time scales specified by Parliament. It publishes its performance statistics on answering PQs within its annual report. Copies of these reports can be found in the House Library.