Asked by: Lord Jopling (Conservative - Life peer)
Question
To ask the Leader of the House, with regard to the 19 questions for written answer that remained unanswered after 10 working days on 12 February, how many of the answering bodies have not sent an apology to the questioner for the delay in responding.
Answered by Lord True - Leader of the House of Lords and Lord Privy Seal
As Leader of the House, I take my duty to represent the House to His Majesty’s Government with the utmost seriousness. Central to this is ensuring that Peers have their questions answered in a timely fashion by all departments. Over the recent months, I have reminded all Front Bench Ministers of their duty to respond to Written Questions within the 10 day target.
In addition to this, my Office routinely contacts departments who have breached this target to ascertain the reasons why their deadlines have been missed. As an indication of how seriously I have taken this issue, I have also written to the Permanent Secretaries of departments and met individually with Front Bench Ministers who repeatedly miss the target.
I believe an apology is appropriate in such circumstances, but that it is a matter for each individual department to determine.
Asked by: Lord Jopling (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask His Majesty's Government which military assets, such as airports, the government of Saudi Arabia has made available to other members of the NATO Alliance currently mounting operations against the Houthi.
Answered by Earl of Minto - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
His Majesty's Government can confirm that Saudi Arabia have not made any military assets available to any NATO members in any operations against the Houthis.
Asked by: Lord Jopling (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask His Majesty's Government what percentage of gross domestic product each member of the NATO Alliance spends on defence.
Answered by Earl of Minto - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
NATO allies' defence spending data, including as a percentage of GDP, is published on the NATO website. The latest figures are from July 2023 and are due to be updated in February 2024.