Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill

Of course they must. It was suggested in Committee that one of the consequences might be that individuals would ask for the release of information about themselves. They can do that already under the Data Protection Act 1998—and quite rightly so. Indeed, I have used that Act myself to access information held about me, including from the Government—and very interesting it was, too. That right already exists, so this is another misunderstanding of the terms of the Bill, which the amendments in the group are designed to correct. In Committee, it was also suggested that information about potential criminal offences passed by an MP to the police might be at risk of disclosure. I believe that it was the right hon. Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth) who made that suggestion. He said that"““if a constituent comes to me and says, for example, ‘The family at No. 60 are drug dealing,’ I make it a practice—and I am sure that I am not unique in this—to say, ‘I will pass that information on to the local police inspector, and I will not give your name or address, or mention the fact that we have had this conversation.’ That is important but, equally, drug dealers and individuals involved in low-level organised crime have the capacity to put two and two together. If they had access to privileged correspondence sent to a senior police officer, they could work out by a process of elimination who was in the frame.?––[Official Report, Freedom of Information (Amendment) Public Bill Committee, 7 February 2007; c. 10.]" Individuals involved in low-level organised crime do have the capacity to put two and two together, as the right hon. Gentleman argued. Doubtless, he would argue against the amendments that are designed to negate that. In fact, such information is already protected from disclosure by no less than three additional exemptions in the legislation. There is thus a wide misunderstanding on the part of Members who say that they are in favour of this Bill about what the law already says. It already achieves a great deal of what the Bill’s proponents seek to achieve. I am sure that many of us in the Chamber have followed the example of the case that I have just cited and passed information to the police. As I have explained, however, that is already protected. Why? First, because information whose disclosure is likely to prejudice"““the prevention or detection of crime?" or"““the apprehension or prosecution of offenders?" is exempt under section 31(1)(a) and (b). Secondly, because information held for the purpose of an investigation that could lead or could have led to criminal proceedings is exempt under section 30(1). Thirdly, because information relating to"““the obtaining of information from confidential sources?" is exempt under section 30(2)(b). Clearly, we are dealing with an Aunt Sally—a worry that we will not be able to tell police forces about suspected drug dealers—raised in Committee, which is absolute nonsense. We already tell police forces and we are already protected by the law as it stands in that regard. In any event, public bodies such as police forces, NHS trusts, social services departments—indeed, all public authorities—and the devolved Administrations all take extreme care not to disclose personal data about the individuals they deal with. If there were shortcomings in the Act, which meant that such information was not properly protected, I am sure that it would have come to light by now. I am also sure that we would all have wanted on a cross-party basis to accept legislation that dealt with any problems that had arisen. No one is seeking to justify using information from constituents in an inappropriate way. No one wants to do that. The difference between those who propose the Bill and those who propose the amendments is that the latter do not believe that such misuse of data is happening. Until such time as we have information that demonstrates otherwise, it is difficult to support the Bill.