What are “Parliamentary Questions”
Parliamentary questions are used by MPs to seek information or to press for action. Ministers are obliged to explain and defend their work and actions of their Departments. All original questions and answers are set out in The Official Report, otherwise known as Hansard and on the Parliamentary Information Management System. Of the 80,000 or so asked each year only about 3,000 are oral questions answered by a Minister in the Chamber. The remainder are written questions. Parliamentary questions must fulfil several criteria. They must: 1) either seek information or press for action; 2) not offer or seek expressions of opinion; 3) not convey information nor advance a proposition, an argument or debate; 4) have a factual basis for which the tabling Minister is responsible; 5) relate to a matter for which the Minister addressed is responsible as a Minister; 6) not seek an expression of opinion on, or an interpretation of, a question of law, since this is for the courts to decide; 7) not refer to a matter active before a UK court or court martial (including a coroner’s court), as this is prohibited by the House’s sub judice rule; 8) not ask for information: readily available elsewhere; or provided or blocked/otherwise denied by the same Minister in the same session; 9) not be hypothetical or obviously about opposition policy.
Oral questions are asked and answered on the floor of the House of Commons.
They are entered into ballot and selected randomly. Written questions are used when more detail is required than could be offered in response to an oral question.
A written question that was originally an oral question but was not reached at question time must have an answer on the day of the oral session. There is no rule that states an ordinary written question has to be answered by a certain date and there is little a Member can do about a delayed answer except ask more questions.
Hansard
Hansard is the Parliamentary records bureau. Every oral and written question submitted by an MP or Peer in either the House of Commons or the House of Lords is recorded along with the answer and available to search online.
Questions and answers can be searched by MP / Peer name and then through date or topic by clicking on “view by member” and then by clicking the relevant Member of Parliament and selecting either “search by date” or “search by subject”.
Alternatively a search can be started by selecting the “Advanced Search” option at the top of the page. From here questions can again be searched by Member and date or simply through topic.
To search for mental health debates and written answers go to the “select category” section. This will open a new window with general categories. Expand “Health, well-being, and care” to bring up the simple “Health” option. Within this option is mental health which is again sub-divided into its constituent areas. Once the relevant area has been selected tick the boxes in the “document type” section to specify just those in the “debates and answers” section (omit “Hansard Index” for ease of use).
The search will list all questions and answers starting with the most recent.
Click here to visit Hansard.