Proposal to cut notice of MPs' questions

Ministers will be given just three days' notice of questions from MPs under plans for parliamentary reform agreed by the Government yesterday.

Robin Cook, the Leader of the Commons, welcomed the proposals, but denied claims that ministers gave "evasive or unhelpful replies". He also rejected proposals to make Tony Blair appear before a committee of MPs as often as every six weeks.

On Tuesday MPs will debate a package of reforms from the Commons procedure committee when they also vote on proposals for an overhaul of parliamentary hours.

Reformers want to make the daily Commons question time more topical and scrap the rules under which questions have to be tabled two weeks in advance.

The reforms recommend reducing the number of questions printed on each day's Commons order paper. But the package stops short of putting a cap on the numbers of questions, despite criticism of some MPs for tabling large numbers of questions.

To criticism of the quality of answers from Government departments, Mr Cook responded: "The Government rejects any suggestion that ministers routinely choose to 'give evasive or unhelpful replies, knowing that questioning will move on and he or she will shortly be off the hook'.