Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill

I am sure that we can. As and when such situations arise, we can all deal with them sensibly. Let us suppose, however, that an issue arises about jobs in our constituency; for example, the employment consequences of the possible closure of a factory in the defence industry—I use that illustration to depersonalise my argument, as there is no such industry in my constituency. Clearly, if we had such an industry on our patch our constituents would expect us to protest vigorously in defence of those jobs. We have to represent local views, so we would have to say that the closure was wrong. We would try to find either a way of protecting the jobs or, if there were to be job losses, alternative employment for the work force. All MPs recognise that we have to do our best to represent our constituents and we all try to do so. What if the Government line was different, however? If one was a Labour Back Bencher at present, or a Back Bencher in a Conservative or Liberal Democrat Government, what would happen if the Government took a different view? What if they had a policy of closing defence establishments? For example, if there had been a Labour Government in the early 1980s, they might have wanted to close defence establishments. In such a case, the consequences for the individual constituency would not matter; the important thing would be to carry through a national policy of winding down defence expenditure. If that was the policy, the Member of Parliament would have a conundrum— should they support their constituents, or their Government who want to carry out cuts that affect the constituency? Such dilemmas arise time and again. Do MPs support their constituents who want better flood defences—a problem that I face in my constituency—or, if they are in the governing party, do they support their Government, even though the Government want to cut the DEFRA budget so that there is no money for flood defences? Do Government MPs support more police on the beat because there are antisocial behaviour problems in their constituency, even though that year’s Home Office budget has been redirected towards something else? Such political dilemmas, where the constituency and parliamentary interests are different—