Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill

I wish to speak to amendment No. 9, which stands in my name and in those of the hon. Members for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd), for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mark Fisher) and for Caernarfon (Hywel Williams), and my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Norman Baker). The other amendments in the group stand in the same names. We have a very serious matter before us today. This is a debate about whether there should be amendments to an Act that would restrict the freedom of information of the public on matters concerning this House and also individual Members of Parliament. The Bill is seriously misguided, with the greatest respect to the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (David Maclean), who is trying to address a particular problem. The previous proceedings on the Bill, which in essence consisted of one hour’s debate in Committee, revealed no evidence justifying a need for it. I shall try not only to show how the present legislation appears to work, and to work well, in our interests, but to explain that it would be extremely bad politics, as well as extremely bad law, for us to seek at this stage, when Parliament is hardly the most well-regarded institution in the land, to exempt the House of Commons or the House of Lords, or both, from the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.