Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill

I apologise to the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick); at that very moment, I was berating my Front-Bench spokesman. I echo what has been almost the universal theme of this House: this is a dreadful Bill. It arose out of the Commission losing a case—that is what this is about. It lost a case not on the correspondence of Members of Parliament, but on their expenses. Let us consider this Bill and its construction. What does it seek to do? It seeks to remove the House of Commons as a public authority. That is the first point that should be made. If it were just about the correspondence of Members of Parliament, one could have approached the matter in a number of ways. But it is not, and the catch-all—the whole purpose of this—is to remove this place as an accountable body within the terms of the statute. The illusory even-handedness of the Minister and others in this House is just that: illusory. Should we stand back from a measure that received pre-legislative scrutiny from the Public Administration Committee and, similarly, from the House of Lords? Following representations from a great number of people, distinguished jurists and so on, and the consideration of international experience, a conclusion was reached: why should Parliament be excluded? The Government, on reflection, decided that Parliament should not be excluded, but they recognised, in the creation of the Freedom of Information Act, that it would need a long lead-in time—five years—so that public authorities could prepare themselves for publication. The legislation has been in force for only 30 months, and, as yet, the Government have done no review of its workings and they have not identified any weaknesses in it. We come on to the purported reason that is given for this Bill: that we are vulnerable in the correspondence that we, as Members of Parliament, have with public authorities. It has been laid before this House more than adequately—that is certainly not what happened in the processes that took us to this Third Reading—whereby the arguments could be examined and tested, and proper evidence adduced. However, none has been. We have had relayed conversations and we have seen a wafted, redacted page in front of us. Who redacted what? Was it the public authority removing the personal details of an individual? Or did Members of Parliament fear that coming into the Chamber they might drop something and someone else would have knowledge of a constituent? I am trying to argue that the fear is not reasonable. The Bill will be perceived as the House of Commons—and, stuck in with us, the House of Lords—looking to its personal interests. What are its personal interests? They are, no less, the administration of the House of Commons, and its expenses and costs. The point has been well made that that is public expenditure. The Bill will also cover our proper personal claims. Those are public moneys raised through taxation. I argue that no citizen in this country is not entitled to know those sums being paid by the people. That is a matter of principle, not just an argument of politics. The House is misjudging the situation if it thinks that the political judgment of excluding itself from the Freedom of Information Act is clever. The press will itemise and examine Members of Parliament. In a curious way, the adventure of my right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border returns us to the 18th century. In truth, many Members of Parliament fear the revelation not of the personal details of an individual constituent—we have seen no evidence to suggest that that is a legitimate fear—but of the comments that they themselves make in a document. A Member might say, ““I know that there is a road coming through my constituency and I think that it is a good idea, but my constituents might not think that. I want my personal opinion on this matter to be weighed, but not available to those whom we represent and whom elect us.”” In the 18th century, it was ghastly to think that the mere vulgar public beyond the House of Commons should know the arguments of Parliament and the reasons behind its deliberations. The House sat in secret and it was a criminal offence to publish its deliberations. This extraordinary Bill seeks something that is wholly and absolutely inappropriate. The House should reject it, and do so cheerily, although as I look at the dour faces surrounding me, I have no confidence that that will be the outcome. We have been driven to a point at which a few—a band of stalwarts unsupported by Front Benchers—are trying to oppose a measure that is motivated and driven by something else. As the hon. Members for Walsall, North and for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mark Fisher) pointed out, this is so particular that it smells like bad fish. How will it allow us to reassure people and give them confidence? The Chairman of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), is in the Chamber. He, twice, has moved that the House sit in private. He might have had a legitimate reason—we know the reasons why he did so—but on the face of it, it looks as though the Chairman of the Joint Committee wants the House to sit in private.