Written and oral questions SCRUTINY

Question 1

What are WAOQ

Answer 1

this is where any MP can ask any government minister a question regarding their departments policy or regarding their own personal conduct helping to hold ministers to account for policies, spendings and failures. it also allows MPs to raise constituency grievences.

Question 2

what are the strengths of WAOQ

Answer 2

• A minister has to respond within seven days with a written question and they cannot refuse to answer if theres an oral question allowing transparency.
• every minister has to answer questions in the commons once every 5 weeks allowing for continuous scrutiny
• puts Ministers under pressure
• With urgent questions MPs and Lords can ask the speaker to ask an urgent question, this become more popular between 2017-2019 with John Bercow being speaker
• there are about 35000-40000 written questions every parliamentary session and can be used as eviden

Question 3

Example of an urgent question

Answer 3

Brandon Lewis was asked was asked in urgent questions on the NI protocol in 2020 if the government intended on breaking international law in which he said yes causing embarrassment for the government

Question 4

What are the disadvantages of WAOQ

Answer 4

• Ministers nearly always see the questions and can prepare beforehand so they’re rarely put on the spot
• theres not enough allocated time as each ministers only given half an hour each
• urgent questions need the support of the speaker before they can be submitted
• they can be more about political point scoring than actually holding the government to account
• responses can lack full information and be misleading

Question 5

example of a written question BAD

Answer 5

in 2021 Caroline Lucas asked what steps would be taken to protect the rights of travellers and the only reply given by Kit Malthouse was 3 lines long saying regard would be given to human rights not answering the question.