§ Mr. HarveyTo ask the President of the Board of Trade on how many occasions(a) non-departmental public bodies and (b) executive agencies responsible to his Department, have provided answers by letter, copied to the Library but not published in the Official Report in each of the last two years. [3157]
§ Mr. LangRecords of the number of such answers are not readily available.
When appropriate, Ministers ask non-departmental public bodies to reply directly by letter to Members and these requests are recorded in the answer given to Members which is published in the Official Report. There are currently no arrangements either to copy the letters to the Library of the House or to publish them in the Official Report.
However, when Members ask questions relating to the day to day operations of my Department's executive agencies, the Minister will ask the chief executive to respond and in all instances copies of the letters will be published in the Official Report underneath the Minister's answer.