Council of Europe Convention on Access to Official Documents

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con) [V]]

I could never conceive that the noble Baroness would be a threat to anyone and I rejoice in her kindly words always. The reality is that Parliament agreed in 2000 that it was appropriate to protect sensitive information from inappropriate disclosure and legislated for exemptions in some areas, including absolute exemptions for information relating to security and intelligence agencies and communication with the sovereign. That decision was taken by Parliament, and in the spirit of adhering to the law, the Government continue to follow that provision.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I also have an MI5 file, which I discovered after a recent government publication. What distressed me was that all the information in it was wrong. Can the Minister make these files available so that MI5 at least has accurate information about why we are totally untrustworthy?

[Lord True (Con) [V]]

My Lords, the noble Lord would not expect me to have access to any such file, and we do not comment on security matters in any case.