Parliament is not working. For all too many days and weeks it does not try to work, as the majority decide to avoid all business and shut the chamber. For 82 long days this summer there has been no Parliament.

But the truth is, it does not work very well these days when it is open. If you have Ministers who either do not want to explain themselves to Parliament, or who do not know much about their departments and jobs to be able to, it fails to perform. All too often when I go in to ask a question, make a point, seek some information for myself and constituents I am brushed off by the Minister. Some Ministers know the answer but think it too embarrassing to tell. Others don’t know the answer because they are not up to job.

There was a good example of this when two Mondays ago we were allowed to meet as a Grand Committee to discuss the “South eastern” economy in Reading. The Minister chose the subject of the economy. He had as much briefing as he wanted from all the responsible departments including the Treasury. His answer to my first question was he would write to me with the answer. His answer to my second question was to assert I had deliberately asked a question I knew he would not be able to answer. One local paper dutifully reported this as fact!

In a sense I suppose he was right. Long experience of Labour Ministers had taught me he was unlikely to be able to answer any question properly. I did not seek to find a particular question I was sure he could not answer. I was unable to think of one worth asking that he could answer. I guess if I had asked for him to comment on anything the government had done that he thought make things better he might have managed it, but he was doing that anyway in his prepared speech.

My first question arose directly out of an announcement he was making. He told us the government was proposing a carbon storage facility for the South East. I asked how much it would cost. You could not get much more simple and direct than that. Surely any Minister contemplating a great scheme would have some idea of the general costs involved before venturing it as a proposal? Apparently not. It was a scheme without price. I suspect it was a scheme without any other kind of foundation in reality.

My second question was not that difficult. I asked what impact printing £175,000 million was going to have price increases in our shops. Some people think this could prove very inflationary, particularly if it drives down the pound and therefore jacks up import prices. Others think in current conditions it is not, as everything is so depressed. A vaguely competent Minister could have got away with saying the government sets the Bank of England the target of 2% per annum for inflation, and the Bank will run things including money printing in order to hit this target. That would not have been an interesting or helpful answer, but it would have done and should not have been beyond the Minister. A better answer would have been that the Bank and government – for the government is involved in this – believe that printing £175 billion is necessary to get inflation up to 2%, as they think prices could fall if they don’t do it. I assume that is what they must believe to be pursuing this unusual and risky policy.

All too often I conclude the government just can’t get the staff to do the Ministerial jobs. If there are no answers there can be no proper Parliament. By the way, I still have not had the written answers to my two questions, promised almost a fortnight ago. What else has he had to do, given the absence of Parliament?