Prime Minister And Open Government

EDM number 1010 in 1992-93, proposed by Robert Hughes on 07/12/1992.

That this House notes that the Government's commitment to open government is proving to be paper thin as evidenced by Ministers' refusals to reply to legitimate letters from honourable Members as witnessed by the letter of 9th October from the honourable Member for Aberdeen North to be Minister for Energy asking for the publication of the Ernst and Young Report into the transfer of the PED from London to Aberdeen, which elicited the reply that a decision on the transfer would be made soon, but did not even mention the request for publication of this Report and the honourable Member for Aberdeen North's letter to the Prime Minister on 16th November drawing his attention to this error by the Minister for Energy and calling for the publication of the Report, which attracted the reply that the letter had been referred back to the original source of the dissatisfaction, namely the Department of Trade and Industry, for reply, which in turn elicited the reply from the President of the Board of Trade dated 30th November that a decision would be made soon on the transfer, but again ignoring the question as to publication; therefore believes that this sorry saga of continued failure to answer a straightforward question makes the Prime Minister's and the Government's commitment to open government farcical; and calls upon Her Majesty's Government to publish the Ernst and Young report immediately and in full.

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