Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill

Occasionally, public authorities err on the side of caution, but that occurs less often. The sadness of the Bill, which must be corrected by the amendments that I tabled with other hon. Members, is that people are beginning to understand the situation. The slightly complex relationship between freedom of information and data protection is now being grasped by public authorities, and the number of occasions on which they err on the side of caution has diminished. It would be a tragedy to throw that up in the air and rewrite arrangements that are working quite well. May I deal in detail with the concept of amendment No 2, which seeks to leave out subsection (3) of clause 1 and would ensure that communications by a Member of Parliament with a public authority are not exempted, as the Bill proposes? It is important to deal with that, as reference was made to it in Committee. Even if we are careful with correspondence as Members of Parliament, the argument goes, we could write to a public authority on a constituent’s behalf and it could release that information about our constituent. That is the thrust of argument in the Bill even though, as we know, the measure goes much wider than that. It is proper to ask whether or not occasions arise on which correspondence is released inappropriately by a public authority with the say-so or approval of a Member of Parliament. I have to say that I am not convinced that that is the case. Dealing first with issues directly related to amendment No. 2 that do not involve constituents but a general exchange of correspondence between a Member of Parliament and a public authority, the Bill as drafted would include a new exemption to cover all communications between a Member of Parliament and a public authority. The justification for that is partly that it would protect MPs’ correspondence. It is worth pointing out that the exemption for personal data in section 40(2) of the 2000 Act protects information about any identifiable individual, the disclosure of which would breach the Data Protection Act 1998. In practice, that protects any information relating to an individual’s medical condition, housing or social services needs, entitlement to pension or benefits, education, immigration status, criminal record, relations with the police or probation service and similar matters. All those matters are already protected under the 1998 Act, so information cannot be released about them. Given that the existing law seems to be working pretty well, there is no need to try to change it. The mere fact that a Member of Parliament had written to a public authority on behalf of a constituent, even in the absence of other information about that constituent, would in itself be personal data about the constituent, the disclosure of which would breach the 1998 Act, so that protection is already there. If public authorities are being cavalier in the way that they approach this matter—I have seen no evidence of that—the remedy is there in law, because such behaviour can be dealt with under the 1998 Act. The promoter of the Bill seems to be arguing that a law that already exists and achieves what he wants to achieve is not working—although we have seen no evidence of that—so the remedy is to get another law, which presumably would not work either, to deal with the same thing. If there was a problem—I do not know of one—as regards correspondence and other material of a sensitive nature being released, the matter is already protected by law, and the answer would not be to enact more legislation but to improve the advice and training given to those who deal with data protection issues in public authorities. The Information Commissioner has told the Campaign for Freedom of Information that he has received no complaints, from anywhere in the country, from any source, about the improper release of personal information, either from MPs or constituents. I would suggest, for example, that had a constituent with a sensitive medical problem found that information to be in the public domain—in the local press or whatever—there would certainly have been a complaint about it. People are not afraid to come forward and make a complaint to an authority when they feel that their rights and privacy have been abused. There are frequent complaints about intrusions from the press, for example, and they are published on a quarterly basis, yet no complaints have been given to the Information Commissioner about the improper release of personal information from MPs or constituents. The Information Commissioner, for whom I have a high regard, is a very active person who takes his job very seriously. His staff work effectively. I am sure that had complaints come in they would have been recorded and acted upon, and he would have produced recommendations for this House to say that there is a problem with the law—that there is a gaping hole and information is seeping out. But no such report has been received. He has found nothing wrong with the present law— he has had no complaints—so why should we want to change it? What we need is to change the Bill by adopting the amendments, which would ensure that the present satisfactory arrangements continue.