Rejected petition: Legislate to compel Ministers to answer direct questions at the Despatch Box
Rejected on
Legislate so that Ministers who are asked questions in Parliament must either answer direct questions or acknowledge that they will not, and explain why they refuse to do so.
The effectiveness of questions would be greatly enhanced if ministers were required to answer them. Allowing the minister to refuse to answer while requiring an explanation allows for issues such as national security or ongoing police investigations to be explained.
For example, according to a simple scan of Hansard, in the last three months’ PMQs, the Prime Minister evaded or did not answer 26 of 43 substantive direct exchanges from the Leader of the Opposition.
This is Parliament at its worst!
Why was this petition rejected?
There’s already a petition about this issue. We cannot accept a new petition when we already have one about a very similar issue.
You are more likely to get action on this issue if you sign and share a single petition.
You may wish to sign this petition which calls for the same action:
Introduce standards for answers to PMQs to be enforced by the Speaker
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/762566We only reject petitions that don’t meet the petition standards.