The 2024-26 session was unusually long, so the total number of Urgent Questions was correspondingly higher than usual (Figure 1). The Speaker granted 192 Urgent Questions during the session: more than in recent one-year sessions, but not a large increase given the session lasted two years. Compared with previous extended sessions, the total was higher than in 2019-21, but lower than in 2017-19. As the Speaker’s Office does not publish statistics on how many UQ applications are received, it is not possible to estimate whether there is now more demand for UQs from MPs.

Due to fluctuating session lengths, comparing the total number of UQs per session can be misleading. It is useful to look instead at the average number of UQs granted per sitting day. This has increased slightly compared to the last session of the previous parliament, although the rate remained below the highest levels recorded in recent sessions. Figure 2 illustrates the significant increase in the use of UQs after Speaker Bercow decided to allow more Urgent Questions, and shows that Speaker Hoyle has continued this approach since taking office in November 2019. As a result, the number of UQs granted remains substantially higher than it was before Bercow’s speakership.

The volume of UQs is now such that, despite their name, they have become a rather routine feature of parliamentary business. During the 2024-26 session, at least one UQ was granted on 132 of the 280 sitting days. Another way to assess their prominence is to examine how frequently UQs occur. Measured by the amount of parliamentary sitting time between successive UQs, there was at least one UQ roughly every 1.5 sitting days during the 2024-26 session (see Figure 3). This is broadly consistent with the pattern seen throughout Speaker Hoyle's tenure.

Most sitting days on which an UQ was granted featured only a single question. In the 2024-26 session, there was one UQ on 83 sitting days, but 39 days saw two questions, and three UQs were granted on nine sitting days. One unusual sitting (Monday 19 January 2026) saw four UQs granted.

Because a typical UQ debate lasts around 40-50 minutes, multiple UQs in a day can take up a substantial share of Commons sitting time, and make the start of scheduled business unpredictable. Unless other business is curtailed, several UQs in a single day may push proceedings late into the evening.

This has prompted debate about the impact of the growing use of UQs on both government and backbench business. Concerns were raised during the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee’s 2025 inquiry into ministerial statements, in the call for views issued by the Modernisation Committee, and in evidence subsequently submitted to that committee by the Constitution Unit.

Although most days with a UQ in the last session featured only one question, the number of days with multiple UQs were frequent enough to create potential unpredictability in parliamentary scheduling.

Given Urgent Questions have become an established part of Commons business, it is important to look at what kind of scrutiny they facilitate and the extent to which that scrutiny is distributed across Government. The data shows that UQs were concentrated on a relatively small number of departments (see Table 1). The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office was the subject of by far the greatest number of UQs during the 2024-26 session, receiving 49, while the Home Office was a distant second with 22. Most other departments faced comparatively few UQs over the course of the two-year session.

Speaker Bercow commented that one of the merits of Urgent Questions was their potential to bring ministers to the Commons more often. Another aspect of scrutiny therefore concerns the seniority of the ministers who answer Urgent Questions. Previous research on UQs showed that during the early part of Speaker Bercow’s tenure (2009-2013), 49.7% of UQs were answered by a Secretary of State. In contrast, most UQs in the 2024-26 session were answered by Ministers of State and more junior ministers, with only 27 (14%) answered by the Secretary of State.

Although the FCDO and the Home Office received the highest number of UQs, only one was answered by the Foreign Secretary (on David Lammy’s visit to China), and none by the Home Secretary. Similarly, only one UQ to the Ministry of Defence was answered by John Healey, while none of the UQs to the Department for Education, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government were answered by the Secretary of State.

The Northern Ireland Office was a notable exception: seven out of eight UQs were answered by the Secretary of State, Hilary Benn, perhaps also reflecting the department’s relatively small ministerial team. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport also saw three of its four UQs answered by Lisa Nandy.

The absence of Secretaries of State from UQs occasionally attracted criticism from MPs, who accused them of avoiding the House of Commons. This kind of criticism occurred, for example, during UQs addressed to the Foreign Secretary on the Chagos Island deal in December 2024, to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on avian influenza in January 2025, and to the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government on the bin collection crisis in Birmingham in May 2025.

But a key question is whether meaningful scrutiny requires answers from senior ministers. Secretaries of State are accountable for their departments, but in many cases the junior ministers who answer are responsible for the specific policy area raised in the Urgent Question and may therefore be better placed to respond in detail. For example, in March 2025 Stephen Timms, Minister of State for Social Security and Disability, answered an Urgent Question on changes to personal independence payments, while in May 2025, Karin Smyth, Minister of State for Secondary Care, answered on the volunteer and care service. An Urgent Question on aircraft procurement in June 2025 was similarly answered by the Minister for Defence Procurement and Industry.

The low proportion of UQs answered by Secretaries of State, and the marked decline from the higher levels of ministerial participation seen in the early 2010s, nevertheless raises questions about the purpose of the UQ procedure itself. If UQs are intended primarily to obtain information or explanations from the Government, responses from departmental ministers may often be appropriate. If, however, they are also intended to secure the visible accountability of the Government’s most senior decision-makers before the House of Commons, the limited participation of Secretaries of State may be more problematic.

UQs provide an additional opportunity for scrutiny between scheduled departmental question times, which occur only periodically. Between February and May 2026, for example, the FCDO was scheduled for just one departmental question time yet it was the subject of four UQs during the same period. The Home Office meanwhile was due to have two question times (although the second was delayed due to the start of the new session) and received two UQs.

The subjects covered by UQs during the 2024-26 session concerned issues on which the House of Commons would reasonably expect an opportunity for debate and a response from the Government. These covered important international developments in Gaza, Ukraine, and Iran, progress with the Chagos Islands agreement, as well as topical domestic policy questions on the Government’s plans to reform jury trials, local government reorganisation, and the steel industry. These examples suggest that UQs may now serve not just as a mechanism for debating urgent and time-sensitive developments, but also as a means of scrutinising topical policy issues that MPs do not want to leave until the next departmental question time.

Urgent Questions are also used by MPs to demand a ministerial statement on a particular topic. During Urgent Question debates, some MPs frequently point out that ministers have either failed to make an oral statement or have announced policy outside the House. This perceived lack of adequate engagement with the House may have prompted the Speaker – who has been a strong advocate of the principle, set out in the Ministerial Code, that major policy announcements should be made to the House first – to use UQs as a compensation mechanism. This role for UQs was recognised in the recommendations made by the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee following its inquiry into ministerial statements. The Government, however, has been keen to emphasise (for example in Lucy Powell’s response to an Urgent Question in June 2025) that a significant number of statements are being made. A tension therefore exists between these different views on the appropriate frequency of statements and Urgent Questions.

The 2024-26 session confirmed that Urgent Questions are now a routine feature of House of Commons business, which raises questions about their place within the Commons scrutiny system. Their increased use has created more opportunities for MPs to raise topical issues and to require ministers to respond quickly to political developments. In doing so, UQs have strengthened the capacity of the Commons to press ministers on issues that might otherwise not receive immediate parliamentary attention, and has given MPs, not just the Government, the power of initiative over the parliamentary agenda.

The evidence also suggests that some MPs and the Speaker think the Government should make oral statements more frequently than they currently do, that UQs are a mechanism to compensate for that failing, and that the increase in UQs may in turn have changed how Government departments respond to them.

The House of Commons could usefully consider what role UQs are expected to play within the wider system of parliamentary scrutiny of ministers. Although UQs are intended to enable urgent and important matters to be debated, the interpretation of these criteria rests entirely at the discretion of the Speaker. Publishing guidance about how these judgments are made could help clarify what falls within the scope of the Urgent Question procedure, and whether its current dual function - as a forum for both urgent and topical scrutiny - should be formally recognised. Should different expectations apply depending on the nature of the issue being raised? Given that, partly due to their more frequent use, UQs now appear to engage both genuinely urgent issues and broader topical policy matters, should Secretaries of State be explicitly expected to respond to the former, while the latter could be answered by other ministers from the departmental team? Another aspect that could be usefully explored is the impact of UQs on the scheduling of Commons business. Could procedural changes be introduced which reduce disruption while preserving the benefits of the system? For example, should there normally be a limit on the number of UQs granted on a single sitting day? Might some UQs be taken in Westminster Hall?

Serban, R. (25 June 2026), Are there too many Urgent Questions in the House of Commons? (Hansard Society blog)