Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill

May I refer to tribunal judgment again and move on to a different point, Madam Deputy Speaker? This has been quoted in the helpful research paper on the Bill produced by the Library."““The key is that the Data Protection Act imposes a test to balance the interests of both parties in disclosing or withholding third party information. However, every case needs to be examined on its merits. The Information Tribunal first considered fully the interaction between FoI and DP in its judgement on the release of information about Members’ allowances in January 2007. The Tribunal found that where the exemption on personal data applied, then the data protection principles in the DPA should be applied without regard to FoI. But para 2(6) of Schedule 2 to the DPA applied a balancing test similar to the public interest test under FoI. Only where the legitimate interests of those to whom the data was disclosed outweighed the prejudice to rights, freedom and legitimate interests of the data subjects, should the data be disclosed. In the case of Members’ allowances, the Tribunal found that the legitimate public interest in the expenditure of public money outweighed the privacy of Members, particularly as the allowances related to Members’ public functions, not private lives.?" I know that we shall have a discussion on the second group of amendments on correspondence, and I shall not go into that now. I hope that my citing that quote has demonstrated that the relationship between the Freedom of Information Act and the Data Protection Act 1998 is relevant to Members’ allowances, which are connected to the first group of amendments. Like anybody else, Members of Parliament have protections as well as obligations under the Data Protection Act. There is no suggestion that asking for further information about MPs’ expenses will take us down some sort of endless route into the minutiae of our lives. Such a scenario simply will not happen. Should any Member be concerned that that is the likely consequence of the Freedom of Information Act, I am happy to say that they are wrong, because the Information Tribunal has applied a careful test to assess on the one hand the rights of MPs to privacy, which we all want respected, and, on the other, MPs’ obligation to be open and accountable. That balancing act must be examined. There is no dispute that those two Acts act in concert in a way that affects the issue of MPs’ expenses. Quite a subtle relationship is involved. The tribunal has gone into this in some detail in a way that has not been done before. Unless amendment No 9 is accepted, there is the danger of the Bill seeking to overturn that. This is not an open-ended commitment to reveal every single piece of information about a Member of Parliament, because we also have the right to privacy in our own personal matters—they should not be revealed, and nor will they be. Like everybody else in the country, we are covered by the Data Protection Act 1998. Everybody else is protected, so the argument necessarily flows that the same rules should apply to us in terms of protection and in terms of disclosure when it comes to being responsible for public funds and being in a public authority. I have talked about amendment No. 9, so I shall now refer briefly to amendment No. 1 and the consequences for the House of Commons. It has been plain to me, although other hon. Members may not share this view, that money has not always been well spent in the House of Commons. We found—usually by leaks, well directed parliamentary questions, suggestions or conversations—for example, that the building of Portcullis House went over budget, that there were problems with the contract, that some features did not work, that there was Weil’s disease in the water features in the centre and so on. Such information is important, because it demonstrates how we are spending public money on a prestigious building. It also shows whether or not MPs are capable of spending money well in the organisation of these big projects, and whether they are capable of taking good decisions, of awarding contracts and of dealing with all the other paraphernalia that goes with such a large building. What emerged from that particular exercise demonstrated that there are question marks about how we organise ourselves in those regards. The Bill would exempt the House of Commons and House of Lords from the Freedom of Information Act unless amendment No. 1 is accepted, so how would we be guaranteed that such information would appear in future? Would we be able to guarantee that when money is wasted, for example the £422,000 spent on the ludicrous covered walkway downstairs, the information will become public? Would there be any guarantee that when we are writing blank cheques on behalf of the electorate to benefit ourselves, it will be money well spent? The only guarantee of money being well spent is that people are able find out about things and question the expenditure of that money. Members may say that some of that information can emerge through parliamentary questions, which is true. What happens, however, if the House of Commons and the House of Lords are exempted from the Freedom of Information Act and someone has the bright idea of arguing, ““The exemption means that we are not obliged to answer parliamentary questions with the same degree of honesty and openness as we have hitherto shown? The House has concluded that this matter should not be in the public domain because it will put MPs in a position where they have to defend themselves and answer questions about expenditure, so it is not appropriate to give the same full answers to parliamentary questions as have previously been given.?? That could be a legitimate argument advanced by someone at a not-too-distant point in the future. Exempting the House of Commons and House of Lords could undermine the system of parliamentary questions. Exemptions from legislation for the House of Commons and the House of Lords do not have a good track record. You may remember, Madam Deputy Speaker, when we were exempt from regulations relating to food safety and health and safety because of the status of this place as a royal palace. The consequence of that, which I remember from my time as a researcher here, was that the quality of the food was appalling—there was actually a poisoning in the House of Lords. It took that sort of incident to persuade either the Government of the day or the House of Commons Commission—I am not sure which—to conclude that the exemption of Parliament from that legislation made no sense and was unhelpful to Members in the discharge of their duties. Similarly, I argue that the exemption of the House of Commons from freedom of information legislation will be unhelpful to us in the discharge of our parliamentary duties. Some MPs no doubt think that they will gain if the Bill is passed, because they will not have to answer one or two difficult questions, but that is only a short-term gain. They will in the long-term be building up huge problems for the accountability of the House, the reputation of MPs, and the proper discharge of public functions and expenditure of public money. We know from the experience of the operation of freedom of information legislation in this country and others that keeping public authorities and public bodies working well requires the ability to find out information about those bodies through FOI requests and other means. The public, MPs and the media have to be able to pose questions to public authorities. When information comes out that is questionable or embarrassing, a self-corrective mechanism comes into play, which eliminates bad practice, incompetence or worse in a public authority. In his evidence to the tribunal, Mr. Walker said that the publication of MPs’ travel expenses had acted to exert downward pressure on those expenses. He said that"““there had been a reduction in overall expenditure on MPs’ travel since the publication of the annual aggregate travel figure.?" In the same way—