Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill

As my hon. Friend says, the issue has been flagged up since the Committee stage. Those promoting the Bill were made aware of the need to ensure that active cases were brought forward. Nobody in this House, and I include myself, is unsympathetic to the stated objective of the promoter of the Bill. If there were genuinely a problem about constituents’ correspondence, I, for one—and every other Member would be the same—would want to deal with that. The challenge has been put down for someone to give examples of when things have gone wrong, but none has been forthcoming. I shall deal with one or two theoretical examples that were given in Committee, but they do not stack up. There have been no actual examples of anything that has gone wrong. The Bill is seeking a purpose; the purpose of the amendments is to ensure that this purposeless Bill, in so far as it relates to MPs’ correspondence with public authorities and constituents, goes no further. The only foreseeable circumstances in which such information about a private citizen might legitimately be disclosed would come if the individual concerned gave their consent, or if all the information concerned was already in the public domain—for example, if the individual had taken it to the press to run a campaign for a particular purpose. In such a case, the information would of course be in the public domain, but the Bill would not deal in any way with such a matter. Obviously, if the individual gave permission for information to be in the public domain, or to be passed to a public authority, they would quite properly have been entitled to do so. Again, nothing in the Bill deals with that circumstance. Those are the circumstances of which I am aware in which information about individuals would come into the public domain. There have been such issues in my constituency, of which I can speak personally. It may be useful to give one example; I speak for myself, although I am not at all unique among MPs in how I approach such matters. My example has been in the public press, which is why I wish to talk about it. It concerns a young constituent of mine, in his 30s, who was losing his sight. Moorfields eye hospital would not make available to him the drug that he required for his sight to be retained. Representatives of the hospital said that they were not sure whether it would work; he said, ““I will definitely lose my eyesight if I am not given the drug. I want to try it.? The case involved correspondence over a lengthy period between the hospital and me—and, indeed, a health Minister and me. All the correspondence was dealt with properly, behind closed doors; proper confidentiality was observed. There was no question of data protection being abused. The matter became public, not because Moorfields released the information by accident or because the Government Department or some other public body released my information that included my constituent’s details. The situation became public only because my constituent expressly asked me whether I would make it so to force the case with Moorfields eye hospital. All Members of Parliament have stories of that nature, and I do not believe that we have fallen foul of the present arrangements. When we arrive in this place, we all know, as if it were instinctive and in our bloodstreams, that we must treat with respect and sensitivity issues raised with us by constituents. We all know that; we do not need to be told, nor do we need a Bill to reinforce the point—let alone the damage that the Bill would cause. I shall come to that. I turn to the issue of public authorities. Correspondence between an MP and a public authority about an individual constituent would normally also be exempt under section 41 of the 2000 Act, which applies to information whose disclosure would be an ““actionable breach of confidence?. The exemption applies when the information involved, first, is not publicly accessible, secondly, is supplied in confidence—either explicitly or implicitly—and thirdly, is likely to cause some detriment to the confider if disclosed.