Parliamentary Questions
Northern Ireland
Theresa May (Shadow Leader of the House of Commons, Leader of the House of Commons; Maidenhead, Conservative)
To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many written parliamentary questions to his Department in the 2005-06 session were not answered wholly or in part on grounds of disproportionate cost.
Peter Hain (Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office; Neath, Labour)
The information requested is not readily available and would require a manual trawl of over 6,000 parliamentary questions tabled to the Northern Ireland Office in the first session.
My Department endeavours to answer ordinary written questions within a working week of tabling and named day questions on the date specified.
This month, however, a number of improvements have been made to my Department's procedures for handling parliamentary questions. This includes improvements to the existing electronic system for tracking parliamentary questions which should allow for the provision of statistical data in due course.