Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill

I beg the hon. Gentleman’s pardon. Amendment No. 4 is consequential to amendment No. 3, and amendment No. 6 is consequential to amendment No. 5. I was advised that, if we were to deal with certain aspects of our public activity—namely, the keeping of expenses and accounts—we would need to change the long title of the Bill. Amendment No. 32 deals with the consequential change to the long title, which would reflect the fact that there were certain exemptions from the provisions of the legislation, rather than a total exemption. Amendment No. 33 would cover any changes to the title, depending on whether we decided to exempt the Commons, the Lords or both. The long title would need to reflect those changes. Amendments Nos. 34 and 35 cover the same subject. I want to make a few more points on the substance of the provisions, but I shall rein myself in from talking about communications. I shall limit myself to talking about the processes of this place. As I said earlier, one of the great benefits of the present system is that, because our activities are now much more in the public domain, we have had to become much more accountable. The public are telling us that they want us to be as accountable as possible. They want to know what we are doing and, in particular, they want to know how we are spending money on their behalf. It is not good enough for us to say that we should decide whether we are going to follow that principle by law. It is difficult enough when we fix our own salaries. We make that decision, and that is invidious enough. It would be regarded as completely beyond acceptable if we were to say, ““You may not have some or all of the information about what we do.? We already have important data protection legislation. No one has suggested, for example, that, in revealing information about the functioning of the House of Commons, we should have to reveal the amount of money that we give to the staff whom we employ. My hon. Friend the Member for Lewes has never suggested that, and I think that the tribunal case made this point clear, although I stand to be corrected on that because he will remember the details better than I can. Such revelations appear to be outwith the freedom of information requirements. The amount of money that we receive as an allowance to pay for staff is about £80,000. I use that money perfectly properly to pay my four members of staff through the Fees Office in the normal way. That is, of course, a matter of public record. Members could, in theory, employ a single staff member on that salary, or use the money to pay two, three or four. In the past, Members—including me—have contributed much more than the allowance for staff purposes. But no one is suggesting that information about individual salaries and the individual contracts of individual members of staff should be included.