§ Mr. BurnsTo ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) how many named day written parliamentary questions tabled to him between 1 February and 1 July received(a) a substantive answer on the named day and (b) a holding answer; [127498]
(2) how many named day written Parliamentary questions were tabled to him between 1 February and 1 July; and how many of those which received a holding answer were given a substantive answer (a) within three days, (b) within seven days, (c) within 14 days, (d) within 28 days and (e) over 28 days. [127511]
§ Ms Rosie WintertonThe Department received 549 named day written Parliamentary Questions between 1 February and 1 July 2003. Of these, 146 were answered on the day named, and 403 received substantive replies after being given a holding answer. The breakdown of days within which answers were given is shown in the table.
Interval (calendar days after the holding answer) within which a substantive answer was given Number of PQs 1–3 150 4–7 117 8–14 66 15–28 53 Over 28 17 Total 403
§ Mr. BurnsTo ask the Secretary of State for Health how many written Parliamentary Questions he received 853W in each Parliamentary year since May 1997; how many received no answer due to the information not being collected or held centrally; and what proportion of the total number of written questions received this represented in each year. [127506]
§ Ms Rosie WintertonUsing Table Office information for previous years, the number of parliamentary Questions received in each Parliamentary year since 1997 is shown in the table:
Number 1997–98 4,316 1998–99 2,769 1999–2000 3,864 2000–01 1,798 2001–02 9,314 2002–03 16,970 1July 2003
Information is not collected centrally on the number of PQs that received no answer and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.