Responsibility To Parliament

EDM number 1186 in 1990-91, proposed by Alun Michael on 23/07/1991.

That this House congratulates the honourable Member for Newport West & Mr Tony Lynes on their initiative and dedication to the public interest, demonstrated by their actions in publishing the document Open Lines in order to provide access to parliamentary questions which Ministers have referred to the heads of Government agencies, thus ensuring that the answers are not published in the Official Report; reaffirms its belief that Ministers should be accountable to Parliament for all matters for which they are responsible as Ministers, including the work of such agencies; and calls on all Ministers to make arrangements for questions by honourable Members to be answered in such a way as to ensure that the response can be recorded in the Official Report and thus be readily available to the public as well as to honourable and Right honourable Members without the honourable Member for Newport West and Mr Lynes having to continue with the burden of regular publication of further issues of Open Lines.

This motion has been signed by a total of 38 MPs.