I rise to speak in support of amendment 117, which is in my name. In Committee, I brought to Members’ attention the Government’s own science and innovation strategy, which talks very clearly about openness. It says:
“Technology allows openness and public scrutiny of research that was not possible until now –going far beyond the ability to share a published paper through open access; the data and the information behind the paper can be made available to all.”
That substantive document, which was produced by the Treasury and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, sets out the case for openness. There are two areas of this debate where openness has not occurred. The first relates to the redacted documents from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which is hardly consistent with the Government’s stated position. The second relates to the point made in amendment 117, which is that baseline monitoring data should be published
“in a form that enables it to be subject to scientific peer review.”
It can be done.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport, the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes) referred to a letter—I thank him for giving me a copy of it because I had not seen it—but it does not address the substantive point of the amendment, which is that data should be published in a form that enables them to be available for scientific peer review. I am not talking about any old published charts and data. The data should be published in a way that the scientific community can use. There are established standards that are well understood by the Departments of the Minister and the Under-Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd). I also ask the Minister to consider that matter with some care as the Bill progresses through the Lords.