My Lords, the Government take their own view on issues, although we, of course, respect the Joint Committee and all its works. I am very grateful to my noble friend for raising this issue. She cares greatly about the responsibility of government to provide transparency and the Freedom of Information Act is just one thing that can be used to provide transparency.
As the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, said, my noble friend Lord Henley dealt with this at the Committee stage. We are committed to ensuring that the National Crime Agency will be open and transparent to the public which it has been created to protect. That commitment is clearly set out in Clause 6. The intention is that this organisation will be fundamentally more public-facing than its predecessor organisations and open in its relationships with the public, partners, the media and, of course, Parliament. Indeed, in the framework document, under the second bullet point in item 10, noble Lords will note a duty to publish information in accordance with publication arrangements that will be set out in a future annexe. It is really designed to indicate in the framework document itself the importance that the Government attach to this. We want the public to be able to access as wide a range of information about the NCA as possible provided it does not compromise in any way the NCA’s effectiveness in fighting crime. We expect that this will include information on what the NCA is doing to tackle serious and organised crime, what it is spending and how well it is doing—so performance indicators as well.
I want to reassure noble Lords that the decision to exempt the NCA from the FOI Act was not taken lightly. We considered this carefully, having particular regard to the fact that some of the precursor functions transferring from the NCA have been undertaken by bodies that are currently subject to the FOI Act. That has been pointed out by both noble Lords. The agency’s largest precursor, the Serious Organised Crime Agency, including CEOP, has not been subject to the FOI Act since its inception. However, we have analysed the FOI requests made to other precursor bodies, such as the NPIA, and we are confident that the agency can balance being FOI-exempt with proactive publication to ensure that there is no loss of public transparency as a result of the approach being taken in the Bill.
I recognise the efforts made in this amendment to apply a partial application of the FOI Act. However, we remain of the view that a blanket exemption is the most appropriate arrangement, not for administrative convenience but to ensure full effectiveness and as a critical operational safeguard. We are talking about a fully integrated, crime-fighting, operational agency that will be charged with spearheading the fight against some of the most dangerous and pernicious criminals and crime groups that impact our communities. Some information about the discharge of those functions will be fit for release into the public domain; some will not. The distinction does not come from an arbitrary line drawn in legislation that seeks to differentiate some of the NCA’s functions from others; it comes from a deep understanding of the types of information that no one would want to fall into the wrong hands. I firmly believe that the National Crime Agency will be able to make this distinction.
I recognise the argument that the scope of the exemptions provided for in the FOI Act could potentially apply to much of the material that the National Crime Agency is seeking to protect. However, as my noble friend Lord Henley said, this is not the only consideration. First, the National Crime Agency will depend on the absolute confidence of its partners to provide the backbone of the agency’s superior national intelligence picture. If those partners believe that sensitive information held by the agency could be subject to public release, they are likely to be more inhibited about sharing that information with the NCA in the first place. Chief among these concerned partners are those in the private sector and overseas—partners who are perhaps not as familiar with FOI as we are.
Secondly, intelligence shows that organised criminals are increasingly sophisticated in their methods and seek to exploit any avenues possible to further their criminal activities. The FOI Act offers them an opportunity to acquire information about the NCA’s operational tactics, to disrupt its operations and to evade detection. While the exemptions might apply to some of this information, the risk is that it might not always be the case.
In short, we remain resolute in our decision to maintain the NCA’s exemption from the FOI Act. To do otherwise would jeopardise the NCA’s operational effectiveness and ultimately result in lower levels of protection for the public. While partial application of the FOI Act might, at face value, look attractive, it is simply not a viable option for an integrated crime-fighting agency. In the mean time, the whole purpose of the duty to publish will be to provide the public with as much information about the organisation’s activities as possible. For these reasons, I urge my noble friend to withdraw her amendment.