Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what estimate he has made of the savings to his Department from the Q&A system in the (a) 12 months and (b) five years since 4 June 2014; what additional ICT systems or improvements to existing systems his Department has introduced or plans to introduce that would not have been feasible without the Q&A system; and what assessment he has made of the extent to which the system has made it easier to answer questions from hon. Members on time.

Savings to the Ministry of Defence in the 12 months since the introduction of the Q&A system on 4 June 2014 are estimated to be £6,800, and in the five years from the introduction are estimated to be £34,000.

No additional ICT systems or improvements to existing systems were dependent on the introduction of the Q&A system.

One of the benefits of the new system is the possibility for the reporting of the timeliness of answers to Parliamentary Questions to be delivered with greater consistency and accuracy across all answering bodies.

It will be for the Procedure Committee to evaluate the effectiveness of the new system in improving performance when it assesses the evidence following the end of the session.