Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill

I fully support the amendments that have been tabled by the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes). It is not my intention to make a long speech. I will put my points as concisely as possible. There is no doubt that the reputation and standing of Parliament are at stake. It may be that the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (David Maclean) introduced the Bill with the best intentions. I have no reason to believe otherwise. I do not believe that he had any sinister reasons for doing so. I do not believe that he has anything to conceal himself. He takes the view that the Bill is in the interests of the House of Commons. I believe that he is wrong and misguided. It would be disastrous—I can put it in no other way—if the Bill became law. The House of Commons would be saying that the Freedom of Information Act was all right for everyone else and information should be given by other public bodies and the devolved institutions, but we the House of Commons, having passed the Act, wanted to be exempt. As I understand it, at the core of amendment No. 9 and the others is the belief that, on Report, we have to work on the basis that the Bill may become law, which I hope will not happen. That is all the more reason to amend it, so that it becomes more acceptable. As I have said, obviously I hope that that situation will not arise, but we have to work on Report on the basis that there is a theoretical possibility—I hope no more—that the Bill will become law. In Committee on 7 February, the right hon. Gentleman read a letter from the Speaker. I understand that there is a reluctance in these matters to quote the Speaker, but perhaps I may be allowed to refer to what he said. I should quickly add that the Speaker was writing on behalf of the Members Estimate Committee. He said that even if the Bill became an Act, the House of Commons Members Estimate Committee would continue to publish every October the information on travel, allowances, accommodation and secretarial costs. I accept that that is the position, but in effect that would be optional, as the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey said. A future Members Estimate Committee may decide that that would not be in the interests of the House of Commons. Therefore, if the Bill became law and the Freedom of Information Act did not apply to the House of Commons, that information might not be published at all. The essence of the amendment is to make it necessary in law to publish the information. In view of what I have just referred to, I find it a bit surprising that the authorities decided to fight the decision that information regarding travel allowances should be published. I have already said in an intervention that that was not debated by the House of Commons. I do not want to question the motives of those who decided to fight the decision. I am sure—I have no reason to believe otherwise for one moment—that they believe that they were acting in the interests of the House of Commons, but the fact remains that the matter went to the information tribunal. Lawyers argued the case on behalf of the House of Commons and I am glad to say that the House of Commons lost. I quote paragraph 93 of the tribunal's decision:"““Having considered all these interests we find that the legitimate interests of members of the public outweigh the prejudice to the rights, freedoms and legitimate interests of MPs?." It went on to say that, if the information is published, which it decided it should be, it"““will only result in a very limited invasion of an MP’s privacy?." For the life of me, I cannot understand why that information should be concealed. When we incur travel expenses we have to sign a form, rightly, from the Fees Office, as it used to be called, saying that the travel that we undertook at public expense arose from our parliamentary duties. Since the information has been published, I am not aware that any information has come to light that there has been abuse. I have not seen any evidence suggesting that we as Members of Parliament have been travelling extensively in a way that does not justify public money. When I travel to my constituency, as I will be doing today, I will be using public money. There is nothing to hide about it. There is nothing that I wish to conceal. There is nothing that I would not wish the local press or the electorate to know. It could be argued that, if I travel to my constituency, the money should come out of my own pocket. I would obviously argue very differently and justify it to the electorate. For the life of me I cannot understand why that information is so sensitive and confidential that perhaps only MI5 should know about it. In all these matters, the test is: can we justify to the electorate what we are doing, what we claim for our secretaries and research assistants, if we have any, how much money we spend on travel and the rest of it? If we cannot and if we do not want the information to be known to the local or national press or to the electorate, of course, we may conceal information that was embarrassing to us. But if everything is, as it should be, above board, why on earth should we want to conceal the information?