Freedom of Information Act 2000

Lord Wilson of Tillyorn Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wilson of Tillyorn]

My Lords, in this very short debate, for which we are all grateful to my noble friend Lord Hennessy, I want to touch briefly on two issues. One is the effect on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in particular of the Freedom of Information Act and the other is the consequences, again essentially for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, of reducing the period of restriction on government records down to 20 years. I fear that on both I have a more suspicious and restrictive view than my noble friend Lord Hennessy.

Maximum openness of government is something that everybody wants, historians particularly, although my noble friend Lord Hennessy has managed to produce fantastic accounts of British policy and the way the government machinery operates without any changes in the way in which the records are dealt with. However, there are dangers, particularly for departments of state such as the Foreign Office. We always say we want officials to speak truth to power. However, will those officials be speaking as much truth if they think they are not talking just to power but to the whole population as well? Will they not, as my noble friend Lord Armstrong suggested, avoid written communications and get into huddles in corridors? Is that really for the benefit of the nation as a whole? Perhaps the Minister could comment on how this sort of danger might be avoided.

Then there is the problem of reducing the restriction of access to public records from 30 years to 20 years. Legislation is already in place to do that. Some years ago, I did a PhD on British policy in the 1920s towards the rise of nationalism in China. Most records were open, but there was one fascinating file that was closed for 70 years. It was the response by a senior Foreign Office official to a paper from the number two in the British mission in Peking, Owen O’Malley, around 30 pages long, about what British policy to China should be. I puzzled about what this reply from the Foreign Office said—clearly it revealed key things about British policy. I went to see Sir Owen O’Malley later. He said, “You must see the reply I got to my paper. It was so abusive that the Foreign Office has closed it for 70 years”.

That did not need closing, but I suggest that other things do. Imagine a conversation a young person in a British embassy has with a friend in a country. The friend is frank about the failings of his country and the people who are responsible. Later, he becomes a senior official. Does he want those sorts of things to be in the hands of his enemies, only 20 years later, when he has risen to a high position? I think there is a serious issue there. Perhaps again the Minister could suggest how “McNally 1”—which I think it is going to be—could somehow deal with this issue; lest, as I fear we might, with the best possible intentions, we finish by shooting ourselves in the foot.