Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill

I am grateful for that intervention. I have tried to make sure that we do not have a debate in which we suddenly discover what has happened. Having missed an opportunity on Second Reading for whatever reason and having had a Committee stage in which, of course, only a handful of Members participated, I wanted to make sure that the House did not miss the opportunity of making a judgment on the following questions. Should we include the Commons at all? If we include the Commons as an exempt organisation, should we include the Lords, which is what another amendment in the group proposes? If we include the Commons and the Lords, should that be done generally or should we make sure that we retain the ability for people to inquire about expenses and finances? The hon. Member for Walsall, North is right in what he says about the amendments. If they are passed, we at least say that although there might be a debate, which we will come on to later, about communication with MPs—constituency correspondence—we reject the central issue about information held in this House being exempted from the freedom of information legislation. The hon. Gentleman has been a veteran in standing up for liberties, and he has done so not in a party political way, but from a general political perspective. He has stood up for liberties regardless of which party was in government and who the Ministers were. He made two points that were not made previously and which I want to associate myself with. First, he said that Members are now judged in terms of our responses in respect of openness and accountability. We are being called to be more accountable, and as we are now under more scrutiny it would be a particularly bad time to seek to close that down. However clever or generous we might want to be in our arrangements, that would be an inexplicable route to go down. Secondly, the hon. Gentleman made the point that as far as he was aware there had been no consultation with his colleagues, and that there had been no formal proposition to test the mood of the House. Many matters of House business are brought before us merely in order to take a view—to take a sounding and find out the mood of the House. I have not heard any formal proposition, other than by the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border and in other speeches today in the Chamber—