Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Nick Hurd)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Dr McCrea.
I follow convention in congratulating the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) not just on securing the debate, but for the way that she presented her case. We served together quite happily, I think, when considering the Public Bodies Bill. I am not surprised that she has been pursuing this matter forensically for many months, through the Education Committee and this debate.
I will do my best to answer the questions that I can. The hon. Lady will know that I cannot answer them all; in fact, I cannot answer the majority and I cannot speak for the Secretary of State for Education. I am certainly not going to respond to allegations about any destruction of information or materials, because they remain just that.
Lisa Nandy
I am sorry to ask the Minister to give way so quickly. I have just handed him a list of questions for the Cabinet Office, to which I should be grateful for answers. If he cannot answer them today, I should be grateful if he looked into them and got back to me.
Mr Hurd
I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s clarification. I was wondering what the piece of paper that was thrust into my hand was. It is a long list of questions and we will do our best.
In some ways, the hon. Lady was challenging the Government on their important commitment to transparency and, because I feel proud of the Government’s direction of travel, it is important to put this debate in context by mentioning some things that we are doing to improve transparency, including in the Department for Education. The Secretary of State mentioned, in evidence to the Select Committee, increased transparency about schools performance.
Information is power and we are giving people more power. For example, the Government are now publishing details of ministerial, special adviser and permanent secretary meetings with external organisations; details of hospitality and gifts received by Ministers and special advisers; senior officials’ salaries; and detail on Government procurement card spend. We are also publishing information on many other items of public interest, such as hospital infection rates, crime maps—which have been an enormous success with the public, with more than 430 million hits since their launch—and data on general practitioners’ performance. More than 7,500 data sets have so far been published through the combined online information system on data.gov.uk, more than any other comparable transparency service in the world.
The information published enables people to see all Government expenditure, browsing by date, spender, recipient and amount. All Government contracts over £10,000 are to be published to ensure openness and fairness.
The whole Government accounts were published in November 2011 and each Department has published a business plan, setting out how it will achieve its reforms, how much money is being spent and what it is being spent on. Reports against these deliverables are published monthly on the No. 10 website.
Transparency does not just extend to central Government. For local authorities, there is increased local accountability and transparency of councils. We can see, down to the last £500, what is being spent in our name by our local authorities, including salaries, names, budgets and responsibilities of staff paid more than £58,200. There is detail on councillor allowances and expenses and we can see organisational charts, pay multiples, copies of contracts and tenders to businesses, which are important to the voluntary and community sector.
Mr Hurd
The point that I am trying to make—I will give way after doing so—is that this level of transparency is unprecedented and today’s debate, which challenges the Government and questions our commitment to transparency in some ways, needs to be seen against this background. So much of the long list that I read is self-evidently good and in the public interest. Why did it not happen before? The hon. Lady and other Opposition Members may have an answer, since they were in power for 13 years.
Lisa Nandy
The Minister has read a long, impressive list of things that have been published under the Freedom of Information Act. Does he agree that it is extraordinary that guidance of such central importance to decisions made across the Government is not on that list? Will he commit to publishing it immediately?
Mr Hurd
The hon. Gentleman says it is waffle, but I am proud, because in less than two years we have achieved all that I mentioned—which is more than his party did in 13 years in power—in giving people information about what the state is doing in their name. I do not describe it as waffle; it is hard information that is in the public domain now.
This debate is about the use of private e-mails and their relation to the Freedom of Information Act. We have to recognise that this complex issue has been the subject, as the hon. Lady says, of a recent decision by the Information Commissioner, published on 2 March. In his decision notice, the Information Commissioner makes it clear that at the time the Department for Education received the FOI request, there was no guidance in existence. This was a new area that had, perhaps, not been anticipated. The commissioner acknowledges that the full implications of the FOI Act in relation to this issue may not have been well understood at the time. He states in his decision notice that he
“would say first of all that he acknowledges that this is a novel issue and one which may not have been anticipated when the Freedom of information Act was passed…Given the unique role played by special advisers it is not always easy to draw a clear line between official information held by a public authority and party political information.”
It is clear that the Information Commissioner’s decision notice raises important issues that the Government are taking seriously and considering.
For reasons that I am sure hon. Members will appreciate, a time period is set out in the FOI legislation within which the Government will consider whether to appeal or release the information. I cannot answer the hon. Lady’s question about whether any decision has been taken. The Government have 28 days from the date of the decision notice to decide whether to appeal. If there is no appeal, the Government have a further seven days to release the information or assert a relevant exemption. Therefore, I am sure that hon. Members will understand that it is not appropriate for me to comment on the decision while such consideration is under way.
The hon. Lady has asked me to make public the advice given by the Cabinet Office to the Department for Education on FOI and private e-mails. She asserted at the start of her speech that she had not received any answers on this, but in fact she has, although it is not necessarily the answer that she wants. In a written answer from the Minister for the Cabinet Office, she was informed that the Department will not publish any guidance on private e-mails and the Freedom of Information Act given to the Department for Education, because
“Information relating to internal discussion and advice is not normally disclosed.”—[Official Report, 6 February 2012; Vol. 540, c. 63W.]
That has been so for a long time and we will stick to that line, because the Government do not disclose what is effectively internal advice. Doing so would prejudice the conditions under which such advice was given. That is a long-standing convention, and it is entirely respectable for the Government to stand by it. Today’s debate has not changed my view and, I am sure, will not change the view of the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General. We both believe, as Ministers before us have believed, that advice between officials and Ministers should remain confidential.
Mr Hurd
The hon. Lady intervenes from a sedentary position. The answer to that question is that we will not disclose the advice or the manner in which it was communicated—we would not normally disclose that, and we will not do so now.
The more substantive issue is what happens now, in that the Information Commissioner has given a view and the Government must respond. The hon. Lady asked when the Cabinet Office will publish its guidance. I have made it clear that the Government are considering the Information Commissioner’s recent decision notice and his guidance, published in December, and will publish their guidance as soon as it is ready, but the issues are complex and require detailed consideration. [Interruption.] The hon. Lady laughs, but we must get it right: the question is new, it is complex and it was not anticipated at the start—it needs to be got right. The Cabinet Office is doing that work, which is well under way. When our guidance is ready, it will be issued.
The debate is valid and raises important issues that the Government are considering and taking extremely seriously. I do not recognise what the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) said about the Secretary of State’s apparent flippancy in Committee—I read the transcript; I was not there—but, given that in that part of the inquiry he was being interviewed under Paxman-like conditions by the hon. Member for Wigan, his replies were serious and to the point. However, important issues, which we are taking seriously, have been raised and I ask hon. Members to allow consideration to take place in the appropriate way. Within the time frame set in tribunal rules, the Government will decide whether to appeal or to release the information originally requested, in response to the Information Commissioner’s decision notice of 2 March. The Government are also considering the guidance issued by the Information Commissioner in December on freedom of information and private e-mails, and the Cabinet Office will issue further guidance to Departments in due course.