Protection of Freedoms Bill

Lord Bew Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bew]

My Lords, I welcome the main thrust of the Bill. With regard to the reform of counterterrorism powers, the Bill has a good balance. I say that as a Member of this House who has had reservations about the control order legislation that the Minister has before the House. In this case, I am glad to say that the Bill has got the balance right between public safety and a proper liberalisation of our law. I welcome what the Minister said about the removal of an historic indignity with respect to the gay community. I regard that as a wise and noble step in the Bill. I should also like to say that the Northern Ireland matters are handled effectively and well, as they touch on many parts of the Bill.

I have one major problem. It touches on matters dealt with in and around Clause 100 on freedom of information and its working with respect to our universities. This has already been referred to by the noble Baronesses, Lady Royall and Lady Hamwee, and I think it will be referred to again before the debate is concluded. I have to declare an interest. My own university, Queen’s University Belfast, has been rather caught up in the toils of this debate, and I am a professor at that university. While I indicate broad support for the Bill, I wish to explain why there is a case for an amendment to it to provide an exception in certain limited circumstances to pre-publication research in universities in relation to Freedom of Information Act requests. A similar exemption already exists, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said, in Scottish freedom of information legislation, and there is a strong case for looking at that.

In my own university there has been an intense controversy concerning a well publicised case concerning tree ring data, which has very much influenced the public discussion in recent times about the operation of the Freedom of Information Act in universities. That work on tree ring data, while important, is in no way connected with my own work or the work of my own department. However, anybody who works in a university knows that the operation of the Freedom of Information Act has changed the way that we work often in quite difficult and unpredictable ways. Universities have to work within the broad framework of public law in this matter—that is widely accepted—but this is one area where there is genuine concern, shared, for example, by Universities UK. I am confident that there is a need to protect the timing of publication of research information and results. Research is highly competitive in our universities at the moment and it often has a commercial value of some significance. There are delicate issues of timing involved in such matters, and the publication of incomplete data and premature research prior to proper peer review, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has mentioned, may damage the reputation of research in the United Kingdom. Perhaps even more importantly, the premature publication of work that is not properly peer-reviewed and fully examined may harm the interests of the general public themselves. In other words, this is a matter of concern not just for universities but for the general public as well.

The Scottish amendment that has been referred to is in fact a qualified amendment where it has to be shown that disclosure would result in substantial prejudice to the research, to those conducting it or to the university. It is not an absolute exemption. It is a qualified and quite subtle piece of legislation. If the Minister is a fan of the Scottish legislation in other respects, as the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, said, I hope that by the time we conclude our discussion of this Bill he will become a fan of the Scottish legislation in this respect also.