Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

On the substance, the Secretary of State and I simply disagree about whether the exemption is fundamental. I do not think that it is. He might be right that it was causative—it helped to get the Bill through the House—but I do not think that it is very important in a proper system of freedom of information, in which the ultimate arbiters should be the courts, not the Government making decisions in cases in which they are one of the parties. May I correct the Secretary of State? There are several requests for urgent questions in the normal course of events, but those requests are not always granted. There is a problem, because whenever the question of Cabinet minutes arises, the Government react automatically in thinking that the exemption should be used. I do not want that to be the case, because that aspect of the law is still within the general jurisdiction of the commissioner and the public interest test. I do not think that it should be changed simply as a result of the Government's repetitive decision. Finally, I do not want to add very much to what the hon. Member for Cannock Chase said about the royal papers, but I think that he is right. The problem is not to do with the sovereign at all, but with other members of the royal family. The question is whether a complete exemption from the public interest test—there is no balancing; it is an absolute exemption—should apply beyond the sovereign herself. The hon. Gentleman is quite right to make the point that if lobbying is taking place by anyone—by any citizen—that is something that the public should know about at some point. The House should also bear carefully in mind the point made by the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd). The constitution is a delicate balance: the monarchy exists in that balance, because it is politically neutral. That neutrality should not just be an apparent neutrality engineered by legal exemptions but a real neutrality. The possibility of the Freedom of Information Act being brought into play in some cases is an important incentive in making sure that that neutrality is real and not just apparent. Those are my queries and concerns, but the overall policy thrust is moving in the right direction—I just wish that it would move further and faster.