Letters Placed in House of Lords Library (Hansard, 21 February 2000)

§ Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, as a general rule, the information in letters from Ministers to Members and other papers deposited in the Libraries of the House should be released by departments on request. Public authorities should make documents in the public domain available to those who request them.

§ Lord Swinfen
My Lords, does not the Minister agree with me that the Written Answer given to me by the Leader of the House that, …points … raised in debate are of particular interest only to the Peer who raises them".—[Official Report, 10/1/2000; col. WA 92.] was insulting to this House in general and derogatory of the general public?

§ Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, as the noble Lord did not draw my attention to the matter beforehand I have no idea of either the context or the detail of what was stated. As regards letters placed in the Library of this House as a result of questions put to Ministers, in the ordinary course of events the information in those letters should be made available by the relevant departments who have placed the letters there to members of the public who request it.

§ Lord Shore of Stepney
My Lords, does my noble and learned friend agree that it does to some extent devalue Hansard not to have a full reply printed in it, because Questions that are put down are often nowadays increasingly siphoned off with the words, "I am referring it to someone else to reply in a letter"? The information does become available, of course, in the Library, but subscribers to Hansard are denied the information which is often of general interest.

§ Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, the question of what is published in Hansard is a matter for the parliamentary and Hansard authorities, not for the Government. Noble Lords are shaking their heads, but the question of what should be in Hansard and, in particular, the question of whether accompanying correspondence should be included—which is the issue raised by my noble friend—are matters for Hansard to decide, because from time to time the department would not wish Hansard to be filled with too much correspondence.

§ Lord Shore of Stepney
My Lords, I was referring simply to Written Questions due to be answered.

§ Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, the issue in relation to Written Questions is whether accompanying correspondence is to be included, which is a matter for Hansard. The question for the Government is whether they should aim to include the bulk of a response in the body of the Written Answer itself rather than in the accompanying correspondence, to which the answer must be yes, one should try as much as possible to give a clear reply in the body of the Written Answer.

§ Lord Goodhart
My Lords, as Written Questions appear in Hansard, is it not appropriate that wider publicity should be given to the Answers and that, even if they are not published in Hansard, they should at 5 least be published on the Internet to ensure that it is not necessary to go to the relevant department in order to make a specific request for that information?

§ Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, the position is that sometimes the relevant department does so and sometimes it does not. Where a relevant department has a website, it will in many cases be appropriate for information referred to, but not included, in a Written Answer to be available on the Internet site.

§ Lord Marlesford
My Lords, does the Minister agree that nowadays Written Questions often receive a reply along the lines of, "I am asking so-and-so to reply to this Question"? In that context, surely that reply should routinely and automatically be printed in Hansard? I was rather concerned when the Minister suggested that the length of the response was a factor, because we debated that matter a few months ago following a report to the House which contained the recommendation that no Written Answer longer than two columns should be included in Hansard. I understood that that recommendation was not to be followed up and implemented.

§ Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, I am told that when a Minister states that he is referring a matter to someone else and the relevant person answers, the answer is then published in Hansard. The question of accompanying material not being published in Hansard is a matter for Hansard and not for the Government. The issue for a Minister responding to a Written Question relates to how much is to be included in the body of the Answer. As I said to my noble friend Lord Shore of Stepney, one should include the guts of the Answer.

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, surely what goes into Hansard is ultimately a matter for the House and not for Hansard? Therefore, it will be for the relevant committee of the House to consider that issue. I should have expected that to be the Minister's answer. Since I have answered that question for him, will he give me another answer? Will he tell me whether I am right in believing that it is still the case that whenever during Question Time a Minister undertakes to write to a noble Lord to give an answer, that answer is always placed in the Library?

§ Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for putting well what I was rather feebly trying to say: that the question of how Hansard publishes material is a matter for Hansard and, therefore, it is in practice a matter for this House. The noble Lord asked whether answers are always placed in the Library. I am not sure whether that is always the case and I cannot give him an absolute assurance on that point. Perhaps I may make inquiries and write to the noble Lord and place a copy of the answer in the Library.

§ Lord Avebury
My Lords, if a noble Lord believes that material given to him in the form of a letter from 6 the Minister, whether by means of a parliamentary Question or in the course of ordinary correspondence, is of sufficient interest to the general public, surely there is nothing to stop him from giving it to the media?

§ Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, that is absolutely correct unless the material is given to the noble Lord in some form of confidence. I am told that some materials placed in the Library of either House are regarded as confidential; for example, in the mid-1980s, the then Home Secretary placed in the Library of the House of Commons correspondence with the IRA which was confidential. It was not published because it was placed in the Library on a confidential basis.

§ Lord Campbell of Alloway
My Lords, will the Minister agree that the Hansard department does an extremely fine job, including a certain amount of judicious editing, for which I am particularly grateful because I was rebuked the other day by the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, but the rebuke was not printed?

§ Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, I entirely agree with the tribute paid to the composers of Hansard. They do an excellent job. I know in my own case that often that which is complete garbage when I say it appears to make sense when I read it in Hansard.

§ Lord Lucas
My Lords, will the Minister undertake to ask the usual channels to ask the House authorities to ask those concerned in Hansard whether they will review the way in which they publish the proceedings of the House and other matters in the light of the new technologies available? Surely a great deal could be done by the way of hyperlinks to other documents to make it easy for people using Hansard electronically to obtain documents referred to in Hansard, without increasing by a single tree the devastation caused as a result of printing it?

§ Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, I am sure that the relevant committees of both Houses which deal with Hansard are well apprised of the need to keep up with modern technologies.

§ Lord Dubs
My Lords, is not the problem that quite often a supplementary question is so far removed from the original Question that no Minister could possibly be expected to have the answer in his folder? If the questions asked were closely related to the point of the original Question, letters would not be necessary.

§ Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, I quite agree.

§ Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe
My Lords, as Hansard staff are so valuable and we have paid such tribute to 7 them, is it not a pity that the lift serving them on the third floor was not repaired and modernised during the Recess?

§ Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, I wonder whether my noble friend has just demonstrated the truth of the point made by my noble friend Lord Dubs.

Lord Bruce of Donington
My Lords, has my noble and learned friend observed over the past three or four months a growing tendency to incorporate in the Answers given by the Government an expression of regret that the records are not held centrally?

§ Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, from time to time Questions are answered in that way because in effect one would have to carry out a huge trawl around the whole of government to find answers where perhaps the effort was not justified.