Submitted on Wednesday 22nd April 2026
Rejected on Monday 1st June 2026
Current status: Rejected
Rejection code: duplicate (see below for details)
Legislate to compel Ministers to answer direct questions at the Despatch Box
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!
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The Government e-Petitions Team gave the following reason:
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
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/762566
216.73.217.87 Thu, 09 Jul 2026 05:40:59 +0100
