Freedom of Information Act 2000

Lord McNally Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)]

My Lords, in the spirit in which the Leader of the Opposition intervened, perhaps I may say that it is an interesting idea to broaden the post-legislative scrutiny. The rules are that it is within the scope of the relevant committee to do that, but I will draw her remarks to the attention of Sir Alan. It would be useful if that committee made use of the experience and expertise available. One of my memories of the original Act was the ludicrous situation at that time whereby there was pre-legislative scrutiny by two committees—one from this House and one from the Commons—sitting at either end of the Corridor, with witnesses moving from one to the other.

First, I apologise to all noble Lords who have taken part. This should have been a three-hour debate that gave the eminent people who have contributed a proper opportunity. I will not do my usual practice of trying to refer to the individual points raised. Instead, I should like to provide a considered omnibus reply that I will send to each Member who has participated and put it in the Library of the House, because the issues raised are too important. If I tried to reply to each in turn, I would look up and all my time would have gone. With the permission of the House, I will do it that way.

I must say in passing that I have never seen so many mandarins in one place since my school production of “Chu Chin Chow”, and it was great to see them all out. I am of course immensely grateful to my old friend and colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy. He is quite right—it is about time that I got a PhD from Queen Mary college because of the number of times I see a letter beginning with, “Professor Hennessy has suggested you might be able to help with my research”. I am grateful in one way because I am in several footnotes to history around the various work that is done. My time goes back even further than his clash with the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, because I was working for Harold Wilson when the Times, with great fanfare, announced this new creature that was going to pace the corridors of power: a Whitehall correspondent, one P Hennessy—to which Harold announced that any civil servant found talking to this new creature would be fired on the spot. Such was the spirit of the age.

The Leader of the Opposition pointed out that the Freedom of Information Act was the work of the previous Government. Let me put on record my admiration for the noble Lord, Lord Clark of Windermere, who produced the first White Paper on freedom of information and on which the Act was built.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, for the quotation from “Yes, Prime Minister”. I do not think that any of us who have watched “Yes, Prime Minister” and “Yes Minister” and have actually worked in Whitehall and Westminster have ever considered it as comedy; we watched it more as documentary. In passing, I should say that I still have not worked out how in those days Sir John Hunt could manage to get from his office way down in 70 Whitehall to the foyer of No. 10 to greet the Prime Minister without any of the electronic devices that we have today to know that the Prime Minister was about to return, but now as I watch it on the cable channels I find the show still very pertinent.

As many Members are aware, I am a long-standing enthusiast for transparency and freedom of information. I therefore continue to be proud to have an opportunity to help shape the next phase of freedom of information in this country. I note what the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, said with his vivid quotation from Tony Blair’s memoirs and indeed the valedictory from the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, who I am very pleased to see in his place. They are matters and opinions certainly to be taken in evidence, although it leaves me, as a proponent of the Act, also to argue that when Prime Ministers and mandarins object, this Act might actually be doing something that it was intended to do.

The noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, has placed considerable emphasis on the Government’s pledge to replace the current 30-year rule with a 20-year rule. I hope the noble Lord will appreciate the enormity of the task. Central government departments alone hold more than 3 million files that will need to be reviewed during this process.

However, just before I depart from the points that were made by a number of noble Lords about the battle—and this has been the battle throughout—between the safe space and the culture of secrecy, all I would say is: let the Parliament system work. The Act has the process of post-legislative scrutiny built into it. Let this process tease out some of the weaknesses that have been named today, and let the Government look at them, and let those who believe that those weaknesses exist give evidence of them. That can be nothing but healthy.

The detailed work has now been done to develop an implementation plan that will balance our intention to reduce the 30-year rule with the burdens that this will impose. I reassure noble Lords, and in particular the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy—who asked for my guarantees on this—that the Government remain committed to this course of action and that further details will be announced in due course. Let me also give him a guarantee that that is not Whitehallese for some time, never. Not on my watch it won’t; we will press ahead with this.

I know that the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, is also keen for there to be a new Waldegrave initiative and an expansion of the current programme of official histories. I fully recognise the benefits to historians that such initiatives bring and I am sympathetic to his view. However, the subsequent introduction of FOI since that time means that the public—including historians—are free to request any records. Moreover, the reduction in the 30-year rule will result in more and more government records being made available earlier year by year.

I hope noble Lords will recognise that such a significant undertaking as the reduction in the 30-year rule would make additional simultaneous initiatives very difficult at this time of financial restraint. I also hope that noble Lords will recognise the unprecedented level of transparency that was not available at the time of the Waldegrave initiative. However, I will continue to keep the suggestion under review and I pledge here and now that it will be called Waldegrave 2. I have no ambitions for it to be called anything else.

As for the official history programme, a good deal of work is already in progress, and I hope that we can review future work in happier economic circumstances. I emphasise again my enthusiasm for the programme of official histories. It would be a tragedy if we were to allow them to wither on the vine after 2013.

Hand in hand with FOI is the transparency agenda being pushed through government by my right honourable friend Francis Maude. The transparency agenda is about much more than historical information; it is about much more than government records in the traditional meaning of the phrase. It is about the information and data that we deal with day to day to inform our decisions and provide our public services. Making that information available is what makes the transparency agenda truly revolutionary. More information than ever is being published proactively by this Government. In excess of 7,500 data sets have been made available to increase accountability, empower the public and foster innovation and economic growth.

As noble Lords will be aware, the Protection of Freedoms Bill includes provisions that introduce a new right to data to ensure that public authorities, including government departments, make data sets available in a reusable format where they can and make them available for reuse when releasing them in response to requests or through publication schemes.

The Government will also be developing a transparency and open data strategy and plan to publish their response to consultation on the form that it might take early this year. There is a strong public interest in increased transparency by all bodies in receipt of public funds, including those in the private sector. The Cabinet Office is considering the type of bodies to which an open data policy will apply.

Many noble Lords will also be aware of the significant steps that we are taking to extend the Freedom of Information Act to more bodies through the Protection of Freedoms Bill and secondary legislation under Section 5 of the Act.

As I said in my opening remarks, I am a long-standing supporter of freedom of information and transparency. I am proud that, on my watch, the Act has been extended and the independence of the Information Commissioner strengthened. I am well aware that the FOI still has its critics among both Ministers and officials. It was never meant to make those groups comfortable, but as the Minister responsible I have played this matter by the book. My department has consulted widely on how the act works in practice. We have produced a report that, I believe—I am grateful for the noble Baroness’s comment—is a model of objectivity in the post-legislative scrutiny process.

That is how matters should work. It is now in the hands of the Justice Select Committee, which has in turn asked for written comment by 3 February and urged interested parties to give the committee their views. As I said, I will pass on the noble Baroness’s comments about widening the basis of the group considering that.

I am confident that FOI is robust enough to survive rigorous post-legislative scrutiny. It is that process that will expose any flaws, if there are any. In the mean time, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, for initiating the debate and all noble Lords who have spoken. As I said at the beginning, the tragedy is that a speakers list of this quality and a topic such as this should be crammed in to the dinner hour, but I will write to noble Lords on the points raised. In the mean time, I am most grateful for all contributions.