Freedom of Information (Amendment)

Denis MacShane Excerpts

Tuesday 7th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) on a vigorous speech. I found little in it with which I would disagree, but I think his Bill should be taken much further forward. My only slight worry was the way in which he so enthusiastically prayed in aid at the beginning of his speech quotes from The Sun and the Daily Mail. I gently say to him, even if he is now sitting on the Government Benches, that if he lies down with those papers, he may end up getting very flea-bitten indeed.

However, the hon. Gentleman is right to bring to the House concerns about the Freedom of Information Act, and he is right to quote the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair. I have his book, which says:

“Freedom of Information. Three harmless words. I look at those words as I write them, and feel like shaking my head till it drops off my shoulders. You idiot. You naïve, foolish, irresponsible nincompoop”—

and that is only on freedom of information. I find it rather touching and a healthy thing that we have a former Prime Minister prepared so to describe himself. I have searched in vain in the memoirs of Baroness Thatcher or Sir John Major for any similar recognition that they now have the slightest scintilla of doubt about something that they did.

I suggest gently to the House that the Freedom of Information Act, which became fully operational in 2005—some five years ago—was meant to lead to better government and better journalism. It has been an article of my faith since I first joined the National Union of Journalists about 40 years ago; in the 1970s, it was loony lefties like me who argued for freedom of information. Bit by bit we won the argument. We could not persuade the then Labour Government, we could not persuade the 1979-1997 Government, but we did persuade Tony Blair, and we now have freedom of information on the statute book.

I ask the question again: have we better government as a result? In May, the British people gently suggested that they were not quite so sure that their Government were a paragon of virtue who should be re-elected. If any right hon. or hon. Member in the House is prepared to aver that we now have much better journalism and newspapers as a result of freedom of information, I kindly ask them to put up their hand. Quite.

Freedom of information has coincided—I am not saying that it is cause and effect—with poorer government, and I very much hope that the hon. Gentleman gets his turn with a company car, because then he will find out what I am talking about. In large areas of government, the written discussion and advice that are now on offer to the Ministers who have to make decisions are weaker, because the deciders—the policy makers—are looking over their shoulders and saying, “Will one tiny section of what I am writing appear on the front page of the Daily Mail, The Sun, The Daily Telegraph or any other paper?” As a result, they hedge their bets.

I started to see that happening during my time as a Minister in the Foreign Office, when it was a privilege to receive, frankly, some of the most brutal assessments of what was happening in the world from very, very able foreign service officers. As the dawn of freedom of information approached, however, those assessments became softer and more careful, because, although there are provisions for not revealing policy and the rest of it, they were not sure whether some of what they might write might, in some other context, be made available for the delectation of our journalists.

I do not have a solution to the issue. Freedom of information is still my article of faith, but we may have imported the model in America, where there is a clear separation between the legislature and the Executive and, on the whole, newspapers are more sensitive about facts, to our system, where the Executive and the legislature are fused and a great number of requests—not all, because many diligent journalists use FOI very effectively—are made purely to seek out sensationalist tittle-tattle. I look at the disgraceful story about the Foreign Secretary last week, in which some of those blog rats, those blog boys, used freedom of information only and exclusively to try to peddle innuendo, smear and rumour. I do not know the answer, but I do believe that we need a serious review of the Act. We need to have a discussion, because the employer of the UK Information Commissioner is, according to Wikipedia, the

“Parliament of the United Kingdom”.

But is he in any way accountable to us? Does he make formal reports to us? Is there a Committee to which I might put questions about what he does? The answer is no, and we as a House need to look into that.

I would go further than the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington. He is a radical and a liberal, but he is in this wretched coalition, so suddenly we can see his liberalism being slowly vitiated as he becomes more and more conservative. We saw that process yesterday, when there was absolutely no intervention from senior Liberal Democrats on the Andy Coulson affair. It was left to the hon. Member for Torbay (Mr Sanders) to raise the issues.

I would like to see the Freedom of Information Act extended to all those organisations and companies that have any formal status within the public realm. We have referred to the fourth estate, and it is time for freedom of information laws to extend fully to all our media organisations. They have far more power than many public agencies, local councils and the rest, which are covered by FOI legislation. What our media organisations and the oligarchs—often from overseas—who own them decide to do has a huge impact on our public life, and any company that is in receipt of taxpayers’ money should also be covered by FOI. [Interruption.] I am glad to see the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington, from a sedentary position, giving me some gentle support; I hope that we can secure some cross-party agreement on the matter and, perhaps, even consider temporarily re-forming the old alliance.

We also need to look at the UK Information Commissioner. That distinguished gentleman spent the early part of his life serving as a Liberal Democrat councillor, and he has twice stood as a Liberal Democrat candidate for Parliament. I wonder whether the Information Commissioner should be so connected, in such a direct political way, with one of the parties now in government.

We also need to discuss the exact gap between freedom of information and the freedom to have a private life, although I do not want to repeat my remarks about last week’s appalling slurs against the Foreign Secretary. We now have the extraordinary example, well known to the House, of our own Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, which has been leaking details about right hon. and hon. Members to the press. When the sensationalist press have applied to it under freedom of information, the authority has given details of secret notes kept about MPs.

Perhaps Ministers are all good gentlemen who never use swear words, blow their tops or get cross; I certainly know that the Minister for the Cabinet Office, who is sitting opposite me, has never, ever used naval language in his life and is a paragon of niceness to his subordinates when he is feeling upset. Frankly, however, if his subordinates kept secret notes about him that were released every other week under FOI, there would be the most wondrous headlines to amuse us. IPSA did that. It did not stand up for a modicum of privacy and it allowed FOI information to be used against hon. Members.

My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Mr Harris) has asked IPSA for some information but it has refused to provide it, so he put in a freedom of information request, but IPSA has refused to comply with that. This public body is willing to put FOI information into the public domain to the detriment of right hon. and hon. Members, yet tries to shelter itself from and refuses to co-operate with FOI requests.

Those are some of the paradoxes. We need a debate and a review. The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington has done the House a great service. Now let us have a wider debate on the reform of how FOI works.

Question put (Standing Order No. 23) and agreed to.

Ordered,

That Tom Brake, Caroline Lucas, Dr Julian Huppert, Dan Rogerson, Tim Farron, Mike Crockart, Stephen Lloyd, Mr Richard Shepherd and Simon Hughes present the Bill.

Tom Brake accordingly presented the Bill.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 12 November and to be printed (Bill 68).