My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his comments generally, although perhaps not all of them. As he knows, the Freedom of Information Act was part of the coalition agreement. It has now been extended to Network Rail in its various manifestations—those parts where there is a public function.
The noble Lord asked for a list of the subsidiaries that are not to be subject to the Freedom of Information Act because they do not perform public functions. He should stand by for a list. They are Network Rail (High Speed) Ltd, Doddle Parcel Services Ltd, Network Rail (VY1) Ltd, Network Rail (VY2) Ltd, Network Rail Certification Body Ltd, Network Rail Consulting Ltd, Network Rail Development Ltd, Network Rail Insurance Ltd and Network Rail Pension Trustee Ltd. I can give the noble Lord a little more detail of those and of the Solam group, the Station Office Network LLP, Victoria Place Shopping Centre Ltd and West Hampstead Square LLP. Those and other subsidiaries I can provide a little more detail about in correspondence, but he will realise that there are some subsidiaries that are not concerned, as I indicated in my remarks, with matters that we regard of a public nature.
The noble Lord was concerned that it has taken some time to bring forward an order of this sort, having regard to the coalition parties’ pledge. The issue has indeed been under consideration for some time. The decision to extend the Act to Network Rail was ultimately taken together with its reclassification to the public sector in September 2014. The order was prepared as quickly as possible following that decision.
On the argument about what our approach should be towards freedom of information generally and whether it is the Government’s plan to extend it further, given the limited life left of this Parliament there is of course not a lot of time to do that. It might help the noble Lord and the Committee if I explain that we agreed with the Justice Committee in its post-legislative scrutiny recommendation that contractual transparency provisions often provide a more appropriate means of ensuring openness than the formal extension of the FOI Act to contractors. Indeed, the noble Lord may have heard me explaining that in the context of the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill in respect of some aspects of what the Government do. We think that this approach strikes a balance between transparency and reducing burdens on non-public sector service providers, including charities and small businesses. Information about contracts between public authorities and private companies is already available from public authorities that are in any event subject to the FOI Act. That is the general direction of travel.
The noble Lord asked about problems with the railways generally in London, and he would probably accept that that is better directed to the Department for Transport. I can tell him that the Office of Rail Regulation is carrying out an investigation into the Christmas engineering overrun at King’s Cross and
how it was managed, and a report will be published after it has been considered by the ORR board. The chief executive of Network Rail, Mark Carne, has launched an industry-wide review into the timing of major works programmes and the passenger contingency arrangements for such works. The Government welcome this review and look forward to its conclusions. If I bump into my ministerial colleague, I shall of course be sure to mention the noble Lord’s discontent with the rail service as a whole.
I think that that answers all the questions posed to me by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy. As I promised, I can provide a little further detail of those companies not to be subject to the Freedom of Information Act. There are contractual provisions and, where they are not subject it is because, essentially, they are not performing a function of a public nature.