My Lords, Liberal Democrats campaigned hard for freedom of information long before the Act was passed and have since been consistent and enthusiastic supporters of its provisions. It follows therefore that we start with considerable sympathy for the issue that the noble Lord, Lord Wills, is pursuing. This is the first time I have spoken on his amendments and I am grateful to him for pursuing the issue at all stages of the Bill.
It is timely because we are now seeing in local government a significant and substantial change towards commissioning. It is not quite the same as outsourcing, as has been referred to, but it is largely brought about by budget pressures and is a change that is coming anyway. Now and in the years to come we will see local authorities all over the country of all political persuasions increasingly commissioning services not just from commercial contractors, but from the third sector, joint ventures, charities and so on. I am pleased that the noble Lord has therefore included in subsection (4) of his proposed new clause a reference to,
“joint ventures, not-for-profit organisations”,
and so on, because that is at least in part the direction in which we are heading. For all those reasons, I am pleased that we have the opportunity to debate his amendment. I am also pleased that he included “significant” for reasons that he explained. I assume it will mean that all the smaller sub-contractors, for instance, will not necessarily be covered by this, and that is welcome too.
3.45 pm
I start to part company with the noble Lord a little on costs. He is quite right to raise the issue and quite right that Governments of all persuasions, local and national, tend to overstate this. I know that the Government have argued that many of the respondents to the consultation said that it would increase costs. I suspect that many of those respondents were companies and others which did not want it to apply to them, so one could say, “They would, wouldn’t they?”. The noble Lord, Lord Wills, has said comprehensively at each stage of the Bill why it should not increase costs.
The Local Government Association, of which I am a brand new vice-president—that was a declaration of interest—has said that it supports the amendment, provided there is no increase in audit fees. I want to question that a little and I do so from the point of view of having for quite a number of years, until very recently, had political responsibility within my own local authority for freedom of information requests, of which there are now a huge number. Many of them are fishing and some seek genuine information. To say that there is no increased cost is not right; it actually takes organisations dealing with freedom of information requests considerable time, and time is money. That will apply even where the information is comparatively readily stored and available. That happens and it would happen in this case, too.
I hope that the Government will agree not simply to accept the word of respondents, who probably have a vested interest, or even to take the well rehearsed word of the noble Lord, Lord Wills, for this but to look themselves at what actual costs would be involved in extending the Bill in this way—it is, in effect, an extension. Then I would say, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Wills, did, that it is not simply a matter of the costs; there are the benefits as well. That is why we have a cost-benefit analysis. Always, there are benefits but it is usually harder to quantify them. That is sometimes because the benefits are retrospective and we do not know what they are until they have occurred. That has to be the other side of the equation, so there is rather more work to be done on this issue.
Although of course this has to be raised in the context of auditing and auditors, because that is the subject of this Bill, the issue is very much wider. I said earlier that the future for local government—and perhaps of other public services—is with commissioning services from other organisations, be they commercial companies or the third sector with its charities and so on. Here, we have a very much bigger issue of the extent to which, and how and whether, the freedom of information provisions apply there. That is a wider issue and I would be happier if the Government were able to reply again today by saying that they recognise that this is a live and growing issue, and one that the Government are going to address. Perhaps the Minister replying—I do not know whether it is he or she, but I think it is he—will give an undertaking that the issue will be actively reviewed and that conclusions can be reached as to how or whether it should apply to the more narrow confines of the Bill before it ends its parliamentary life. The Bill is likely to leave this House after today but that certainly does not end its life, as it will continue in another place throughout the autumn. If the Government can say that they will continue to look actively at that issue, both generally and in the context of the Bill, I would be content to support them.