DEMOCRACY SPECIAL: PM dodges MPs questions

Lib Dem MP Norman Baker has a formidable reputation as a parliamentary inquisitor. After being elected to Parliament in 1997 he asked more questions in his first three months than his Conservative predecessor had asked in 23 years. His notable achievements since include triggering Peter Mandelson's second Cabinet resignation with his questions over the passport application of billionaire Dome sponsor Srichand Hinduja, and winning a freedom of information battle with the Commons authorities over the publication of MPs' expenses.

But according to Norman the job of the inquisitor is getting harder. In an adjournment debate on January 22nd he claimed that, while Labour ministers had initially improved the fullness and frankness of answers to parliamentary questions when they took over in 1997, the years since had seen a big increase in the use of classic answer avoidance techniques. These include the partial answer, use of the ‘disproportionate cost' excuse, and referring the questioner to an often lengthy statistical digest or website rather than providing an answer directly.

Norman said the number of questions being denied an answer on the basis of commercial confidentiality was also on the up. "An analysis of the number of times that that reason was used under the Conservatives before 1997 can be demonstrated by a steadily rising graph, but that graph drops dramatically after 1997 when the Minister's Government came to power. I have to say, however, that the graph has subsequently risen to the level that it had reached under the Conservatives. It is difficult to imagine that there were fewer matters of commercial confidentiality in 1998 than at any other point, and there is rightly a suspicion that the number of times when that excuse, or reason, for not giving a full answer has been given is related not simply to the existence of commercial confidentiality but to the difficulty or expediency involved in not giving an answer for political reasons."

Norman said that questions that would previously have been answered were now being rebuffed. "In about 1998, I asked the former Department of Transport... about the carriage of radioactive material by air. I asked how many flights carried radioactive material, and I was given a specific figure. When I asked that question again recently, I was told that those figures were not collected. I cannot believe that in the past 10 years, the Government have decided not to collect those figures, but that is what I was told." On another occasion, he said, a minister had given a misleading answer to another MP because a question asked how much nuclear waste was carried by air, rather than how much spent nuclear fuel. The intention of the question was clear, said Norman, but while the answer was technically correct, it was totally misleading.

Norman identified Gordon Brown as one of the biggest offenders at failing to answer questions. Of the 23 written parliamentary questions he had tabled to the PM over the last 12 months, only four had been answered in any way satisfactorily. "Sometimes the Prime Minister will provide irrelevant information: he is asked one thing, but his reply bears no relation to the question he was asked. Sometimes he provides information that is so vague that it cannot be used in any shape or form. Sometimes he answers the bit of the question he likes, and leaves unanswered the bits that are more difficult to answer."

He gave the example of a question he had tabled to 22 ministers, including the Prime Minister, about when they had last travelled by train. 18 ministers had responded with a precise date. Two had given holding answers. But the Prime Minister and the Chancellor refused to give the information. Mr Brown had just provided a bland statement of his general criteria for deciding how to travel. Another example was the Prime Minister's refusal to answer a question about when he had last met Tony Blair.

While there may be circumstances in which it is legitimate to not answer a parliamentary question, the sheer number of occasions on which this is happening suggests that increasingly, the test was whether an answer would cause political embarrassment. This is a misuse of power, the government must change its ways.