§ Lord Lucasasked the Chairman of Committees:
In the last year for which data are available, and in the equivalent period 10 years ago, what was the average number of answers given to each Starred Question; and what was the average number of answers given during "Back-Bench time" on Statements. [HL5398]
§ The Chairman of Committees (Lord Brabazon of Tara)This information is not recorded and could not be collected in full without incurring disproportionate expense. I have, however, arranged for an analysis to be undertaken of the three-month periods January to March 1993 and 2003, with the following results:
January-March 1993 January-March 2003 Average number of supplementary questions per Starred Question 7.1 6.0 Average number of answers during "Back-Bench time" on Statements 8.4 8.2 On some occasions (five out of 16 in 1993 and eight out of 22 in 2003) "Back-Bench time" on Statements lasted less than 20 minutes. If one counts only those Statements when Back-Bench time lasted 20 minutes or more, then the average number of answers during Back-Bench time was 9.5 in 1993 and 9.2 in 2003.