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Business of the House

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point about questions. Questions tabled by hon. Members to Government Ministers about issues of public concern or of concern in their constituencies are all helpful, so we should back Members up in asking them. All answers should be prompt, full and completely accurate. Members should not have to resort to freedom of information requests. If a mistake is made—honest mistakes will sometimes be made and misinformation given in a parliamentary answer—the Department itself should ensure that the answer is corrected and sent directly to the Member concerned. We also need to make arrangements to ensure that corrections are printed in Hansard. At the moment, the relevant Member can be invited to retable the question, but that is a bit clumsy. We are thinking about whether to have a corrections page at the end of Hansard, so that people can see when information has been wrong. I do not want us to seem like The Guardian, but when Government Departments get things wrong, they should correct them; it should not be necessary to make freedom of information requests. As soon as an hon. Member has tabled a question, they should be confident that it will be answered accurately.