The House of Commons Library provides an excellent service to MPs, and some of their work is made available to all on the internet. In addition to their research papers which topic a wide variety of subject, they make available their Research Papers and Standard Notes on the topics of Parliament and the constitution at http://mirror.parliament.uk/works/notes_on_parliament_and_constitution.cfmThis week they published a standard note entitled 'Absence of a Prime Minister at Prime Minister’s Question Time', listing every occasion at which the Prime Minister of the day missed PMQs (No reasons given - but I'm sure there were good 'excuses' - attending summits, handling crises etc). Interestingly the percentage of missed PMQs are:
Mrs Thatcher 7.7%
John Major 11.8%
Tony Blair 5.0%
The full paper is available at http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/notes/snpc-04401.pdf
