To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many and what proportion of questions tabled to the Secretary of State for ordinary written answer (a) in Session 2009-10 and (b) since May 2010 were answered within (i) seven days and (ii) 14 days of tabling; how many such questions tabled between May 2010 and 12 November 2010 remained unanswered by 18 November 2010; and what estimate he has made of the average cost to his Department of answering a question for ordinary written answer within seven days of tabling in the latest period for which figures are available.

The information is as follows:

(a) The Government have committed to providing the Procedure Committee with sessional statistics in a standard format on the time taken to respond to written parliamentary questions for the 2009-10 session. This information will be submitted to the Procedure Committee shortly.

(b) My Department does not hold this information in the format requested. In the period from May 2010 to 12 November 2010, the Northern Ireland Office (NIO) received a total of 111 ordinary written parliamentary questions, of which 81 (73%) were answered within five sitting days.

All questions tabled between May 2010 and 12 November 2010 have received a substantive answer.

An estimation of the costs in answering parliamentary questions was provided in a written ministerial statement on 20 January 2010, Hansard, column 15WS.