Ministers slower to answer questions from MPs during pandemic

THE speed at which Ministers are responding to written questions has dropped by 15 per cent throughout the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new report from MPs.

A large increase in the number of questions directed at Health Ministers has been blamed for the fall in response times.

The research by the Commons Procedure Committee found that in the 2019 to 2021 Parliament, there was a decline of 15 per cent in the rate of timeliness of answering named day questions, and a 13 per cent fall in the timeliness of answering ordinary questions.

As well as asking questions in the House of Commons, MPs can write to Ministers, and responses are published on the Parliamentary website.

During the same period, the average number of written questions tabled each day increased to 331, which is a rise of 18 per cent on the previous full parliamentary session from 2017 to 2019.

The chairwoman of the Commons Procedure Committee, Karen Bradley, who is also a former Cabinet Minister, said: “Parliamentary questions play a vital role in scrutiny of Government policies. At the heart of it, this is a question of Ministerial accountability.

“As a former Minister, I know just how crucial good responses to parliamentary questions are, having had to tackle poor answering performance during my time in both the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Home Office.

“When MPs put questions to the Government, they do so on behalf of the British public, so they should receive full, accurate and timely answers.”