Brown 'won't answer MP questions'

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Gordon Brown consistently fails to answer MPs' written questions properly, it has been claimed.

Lib Dem MP Norman Baker said fewer than one in five of the questions he asked were answered in a "meaningful way".

He accused the prime minister of using a variety of tactics to avoid answering "relatively simple" enquiries.

Deputy commons leader Chris Bryant said openness was vital in Parliament and the PM faced more scrutiny than leaders of many other nations.

Written and oral Parliamentary questions are one of the main ways in which backbench MPs can hold the government to account.

The Ministerial Code says members of the government should be "as open as possible with Parliament and the public, refusing to provide information only when disclosure would not be in the public interest".

'Bad practice'

But Mr Baker, the Lib Dem transport spokesman and one of Westminster's most dogged inquisitors, said Labour had become steadily less candid since coming to power in 1997.

Sometimes he provides information that is so vague it is useless Norman Baker on the PM's answers to his questions

He told MPs: "The longer a government is in power, the more they are responsible for themselves and the more they feel the obligation to hide things.

"It is perhaps a human reaction but it is also a wrong reaction because once you hide one more thing, you then have to hide the fact you've hidden it."

He praised Justice Secretary Jack Straw who he said had always been "straight down the line" in answering questions, even if they harmed the government in the short term.

He also singled out the Ministry of Defence for "invariably" providing "proper answers".

But he said many other government departments were guilty of "bad practice" and "the worst practice in government, I'm afraid, relates to the prime minister".

He said Mr Brown had answered just four of the 23 written questions he had asked in the past year satisfactorily.

"That's really not good enough," said Mr Baker, who has published a dossier detailing alleged examples of prime ministerial evasion.

Excuses

He accused Mr Brown of using stock excuses to avoid answering questions, despite saying he wanted ministers to be more accountable to Parliament when he took over as prime minister.

Excuses included providing "irrelevant information - you ask him one thing and he tells you something entirely different," said Mr Baker.

Openness is good for government - whether one is on opposition benches or one is a government backbencher exactly the same principles apply Chris Bryant, deputy commons leader

"Sometimes he provides information that is so vague it is useless," added Mr Baker, and "sometimes he answers a bit of the question he likes" and ignores the rest.

On other occasions, Mr Baker alleged the PM refers MPs to previous answers or simply says "I have nothing further to add".

Among the questions to which Mr Baker claimed he had not received satisfactory answers were on what date the PM last met Tony Blair and how many times he travelled by train.

'More robust'

He said he would "like to think" Mr Brown was not personally responsible for drafting answers and that it was "a matter for the spotty apparatchiks who occupy the back of Number 10" but he said he had been assured by Mr Brown himself that he personally approved each one of them.

Speaking in a short adjournment debate in the Commons, Mr Baker said: "We have a right to ask questions and we have a right to answers even if the answers cause the government political difficulties."

Replying for the government, Chris Bryant said: "Openness is good for government. Whether one is on opposition benches or one is a government backbencher exactly the same principles apply.

"I believe that our Parliament has more robust means of trying to ensure that than nearly any other legislature that I know."

"Unpredictable" oral questions on topical issues, such as the weekly prime ministers' question time session, were not seen in many other countries, he argued.