Wright: victory for MPs

The government has pledged to give less equivocal responses to parliamentary questions.

In a response to the Commons public administration committee, ministers said on Thursday that they will do more to uphold the "open government code".

The government says that it will make less use of the "I will write" answer - the political equivalent of kicking a question into the long grass.

Where a minister does withhold an answer, the government has agreed to explain the "very good reason" for doing so.

Currently some departments explain which exemption under the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information applies when they decide not to answer a question on the spot.

In future, however, all departments will detail why the minister has decided to withhold information from parliament.

The move has been welcomed as a victory for the House of Commons by the committee's chairman, Dr Tony Wright.

"By stripping away the chance for ministers to claim vague excuses when confronted with a tricky question, forcing them to explain properly why information should be hidden, it will put the executive on the spot," he said.

"We hope and expect to see substantial improvements in the quality of replies, and it is greatly to the government's credit that it has moved to accept our recommendation."

Despite the government's assurance, the committee claims that "good intentions are still not matched by consistent achievement".

"There are still too many examples of ministers failing to provide proper replies to parliamentary questions," adds the report.

The cross-party body of MPs argues that in the past many ministers have attempted to evade questioning by employing phrases such as it is "not normal practice to provide this information".

"In the past this has been regrettably common, with some departments significantly worse than others," says the report.

The committee singles out the Department for Work and Pensions for particular criticism.