Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill

I take the point that my right hon. Friend makes. I have read those guidelines and they are woolly. Whatever happens to the Bill, the guidelines need reviewing. The lack of a guarantee may have the unintended consequence of preventing MPs from pressing their constituents’ issues as openly as they have been able to do until now, for fear that what they say may be more likely to embarrass the constituent at a later stage. I do not think that the information tribunal’s decision on 16 January 2007, confined as it was to Members’ travel allowances, need prevent us from action here. It would, however, have been helpful if the Information Commissioner had gone further and expressed the interrelationship between freedom of information and data protection in wider terms than he did in his judgment, not least because it would have prevented much of the existing confusion about MPs’ staffing arrangements and data protection issues. In the meantime, the Information Commissioner seems to be waiting for the result of this Bill before issuing clearer guidelines.