very first question which mr blair received as prime minister, asked by the normally mild-mannered ian taylor then member for esher. mr taylor's inquiry opened with the words: "i warmly welcome the prime minister to his role of answering questions and i am grateful to him for finding the time in his diary to do so. at some point he might consult the house about these changes". mr blair replied, it shoud be recorded, that the procedure committee should feel able to "review the new system as time progresses" and "look at ways that it can be improved in the light of experience". that offer has never been fully taken up, which is a strange omission. the failure to embrace change in 1995 still haunts us today. a procedure committee report into parliamentary questions as a whole which was published in 2002 really only glanced at pmqs, conceding that the contest "tends to encourage 'tribal behaviour' on both sides which damages the public image of the house, while the hopping from one subject to another which is the consequence of open questions militates against sustained and serious ru