Operational Matters and PQs

Labour are taking a while to get the hang of Opposition. We saw this at the beginning of the year when former Ministers couldn’t even word oral questions in the House, and we have seen this at years end, with their 4,000 written questions to Ministers in one day.

But a source tells me Labour have made a major fuck up with many of their questions. They are questions that should have been asked of Departmental CEOs through the annual select committee financial review. This is how National MPs got their information in Opposition – because asking about operational matters through a Ministerial PQ would get declined.

And it seems Labour asked relatively few questions during the annual select committee financial reviews – a small fraction of the numbers asked by National MPs in Opposition. Maybe they thought they didn’t need to, and they could just ask them as Ministerial PQs. Rather silly not knowing the rules, considering how many of their MPs are ex-Ministers or ex-Ministerial staff. Maybe they just are not quite as clever as they think they are.