Dr. Tony WrightTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the public consultation exercises on policy matters carried out by his Department and its agencies in each of the last five years; who was consulted and by what means; how responses were analysed; how and in what form the results were transmitted to those responsible for the consultation; how the results of the consultation were published; and what analysis has been carried out of the extent and nature of policy changes resulting from the consultation. [106303]
§ Mr. KilfoyleThe information requested is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost. Our largest public consultation exercise on policy matters in the last five years was that conducted to inform the strategic defence review which was launched on 28 May 1997. The then Secretary of State invited everyone who wished to contribute to the review to put forward their ideas and over 570 submissions were received. Each submission was analysed to record the subjects of concern, and circulated to the appropriate Working Groups for consideration. 486 authors consented to having their submissions made public. These were placed in the Libraries of the House and provided on microfiche to 12 public libraries across the United Kingdom.
In addition, in July and November 1997, the then Secretary of State and the Foreign Secretary jointly hosted three seminars to contribute to the strategic defence review to which a wide range of academics, journalists, Opposition Members and members of non-Governmental organisations were invited. Summaries of each seminar were placed in the Libraries of the House and published on the Ministry of Defence website.
The assessment of the submissions and the seminars formed part of the strategic defence review, the recommendations of which were published as the Strategic Defence Review White Paper (Cm3999) and the Strategic Defence Review Supporting Essays. Both documents were also published on the Ministry of Defence website.