§ Mr. McMasterTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many parliamentary questions to his Department have not been answered over the past five years; because of disproportionate costs or because the 693W information requested was not held centrally how many could be answered now due to computerisation and/or more effective operational systems; and if he will list each such question along with the name and constituency of the hon. Member who tabled it.
§ Sir John CopeAround 160 parliamentary questions were not answered fully and substantively in the five calendar years 1989–93 either because the information requested was not available or because it could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. This represents less than 1½ per cent. of the questions answered by Treasury Ministers.
Determining precisely how many of these questions could now be answered would be a major exercise which would itself be disproportionately costly to undertake. However, I would expect there to be very few instances where information could now be provided which was not available previously.