Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill

I completely agree. I take the view that as Labour Members we should be proud to support a Labour Government who introduced the Freedom of Information Act, which all our predecessors, and certainly the last Conservative Government, refused to do. The hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd)—if I may have his attention for a moment—introduced a private Member’s Bill that was rejected by the previous Government, so if there is to be any party political propaganda, all I shall say at the moment is that I am pleased we brought the Act into being. Finding squalid reasons to exempt ourselves from it would be wrong. It was not my intention to make a long speech. I know that other hon. Members rightly want to speak, so I conclude by saying that even if we work on the assumption that we have nothing to hide, the public will inevitably come to the opposite conclusion. They will not conclude that this is about confidentiality, because no evidence exists for that. In answer to the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border, I should say that no constituent of mine has ever complained that information that they have given me as the Member of Parliament has gone into the public domain. The public will reach only one conclusion: that we have something to hide. That is why we are doing ourselves a disservice. Even if we do not have anything to hide, that will be the view that so many of the public will take. What is intended today may well be carried, because, as I said, enough people have been enlisted. If the Bill is enacted, the danger is that we will do ourselves a grave disservice. We will be bringing into law an Act that puts a question mark over our integrity and our honesty, and that is all the more reason why I hope that, either today or in another place, the Bill is defeated.