§ Mr. AllenTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment in respect of how many parliamentary questions a substantive answer was not provided by his Department wholly or partly on the ground of disproportionate cost in each of the last 18 months(a) in total and (b) as a proportion of questions answered.
§ Mr. HowardInformation for the past 18 months is not readily available in the form requested. However, since the beginning of this Session my Department has answered over 4,600 parliamentary questions, 16, or 0.003 per cent., of which have not been given a substantive answer wholly or partly on the ground of disproportionate cost. The monthly breakdown is as follows:
Number November 1992 2 December 1992 2 January 1993 8 February 1993 0 March 1993 2 April 1993 1 May 1993 0 June 1993 1