Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill

It is indeed. I hope that, as a consequence of our debate, the Under-Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, the hon. Member for Lewisham, East (Bridget Prentice), will made a statement in which she makes plain the Government’s position. I challenge her to give us her view on amendment No. 9 and, in particular, amendment No. 1. Does she, on behalf of the Government, want to defend the legislation that they introduced, or does she want to aid the pulling of the rug from under the Freedom of Information Act? Does she stand with the Lord Chancellor in resisting the watering down of the Act, or with less progressive elements in the Home Office, who are happy to see the Act weakened? How does the Bill fit with the proposed fee changes? I know that you will not let me go into that in detail, Madam Deputy Speaker, but those changes are relevant in one respect, which is that we need to know whether there is a Government position on the Bill and on the amendments and that would be clearer if we knew why the Government did not to object to the Bill’s Second Reading and why they have introduced the new charging scheme under their own legislation. We need a statement from the Government—