§ Mr. Skeetasked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many parliamentary questions were answered by his Department in the most recent year for which figures are available; and whether this represents an increase or decrease over previous years.
§ Mr. HeseltineStatistics on parliamentary questions answered are kept by sessional years, the lengths of which are not precisely comparable. In the following table the
427Wfigures in brackets represent the number of sitting days on which questions were answered in the House of Commons:
Year Number 1978–79 (90 days) 1,538 1979–80 (240 days) 3,498 1980–81 (164 days) 2,352