Written question asked by Lord Harris of Haringey (Labour) on Tuesday, 13 December 2016, in the House of Lords. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 29 December 2016. It was answered by Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Conservative) on Tuesday, 20 December 2016 on behalf of the Leader of the House of Lords.

Written Questions

Question: To ask the Leader of the House what arrangements are in place to ensure that, in answering Questions for Written Answer, government departments are, as required by the Ministerial Code, "accurate and truthful" and as "open as possible" in the answers they provide to members of the House of Lords; whether she has put in place a system to provide quality assurance of the answers provided by government departments to members of the House of Lords; and if so, what..

Answer: As Leader of the House I take very seriously the responsibility incumbent on all Ministers to provide full, timely and comprehensible answers to Questions for Written Answer. This is something I stress regularly to frontbench colleagues and which I will certainly reiterate in the light of the Noble Lord’s question. My office also engage regularly with private offices and Parliamentary teams when issues arise, both proactively and in response to concerns raised by individual members. It is for Ministers, though, to be directly accountable for the content of their answers, which is why I fully support the rule that Ministers must personally sign all answers to members of the House of Lords.

Secondary information