Answers To Parliamentary Questions

EDM number 53 in 1991-92, proposed by Alun Michael on 31/10/1991.

That this House believes that the right of honourable Members to put questions to Ministers on matters for which their departments are responsible and the duty of Ministers to answer those questions constitute a fundamental safeguard of our liberties in the United Kingdom; congratulates the honourable Member for Newport West and Mr Tony Lynes for upholding that right by publishing in Open Lines those answers which are provided by the chief executives of the recently-created executive agencies in response to questions posed to Ministers; believes that the procedure by which such answers are not published in the Official Report, merely placed in the Commons Library and the Public Information Office, constitutes a dangerous evasion of the duty of Ministers; considers that it is farcical for such answers not to be published in the Official Report when it has already been acknowledged, Official Report, 21st October 1991, column 438, that a chief executive has to submit any reply to an honourable Member for Ministerial approval before it is sent to the Member; looks forward with interest to the forthcoming publication of Issue No. 3 of Open Lines; but considers that the Government should now end the ludicrous pretence that executive agencies are independent bodies by printing in the Official Report all replies to questions tabled property to Ministers by honourable Members.

This motion has been signed by a total of 60 MPs.