Freedom of Information Act 2000

Lord Wright of Richmond Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wright of Richmond]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate my noble friend on initiating this debate. However, I should like to draw attention, as others have, to rather a different problem—namely, the extent to which the Freedom of Information Act in its present form and application, and the Government’s existing transparency agenda, may affect the readiness of public servants at home and diplomats abroad to record their frank advice to Ministers, even though there are exemptions in the Freedom of Information Act designed to cover confidential advice to Ministers and damage to international relations.

Does the Minister agree that there is a real potential constraint on officials if they believe that their confidential advice is liable to be open to early public access in spite of these exemptions, as illustrated by the recent decision to stop valedictory dispatches by departing heads of mission? I personally deplore this, having benefited three times from the experience and assessments of my ambassadorial predecessors. I regard the problem as being not so much the availability of government records, but whether important advice to Ministers is failing to be recorded for eventual inclusion in the National Archives. There is also a potential problem for future historians, unrelated to the Freedom of Information Act, in the failure to register many of the constant official exchanges by e-mail.

It is, I hope, an exaggeration—although I have heard it said—that the application of the Freedom of Information Act has led to a climate of fear in Whitehall, and to a marked reluctance by officials to put their frank and confidential advice in writing, whether by minute, letter, dispatch or valedictories. The Minister knows well, from our service together in 10 Downing Street many years ago, the importance that we both attach to a relationship of mutual trust between Ministers and their advisers. Does he accept that there is a real danger of that mutual trust being eroded by the excessive application of the Freedom of Information Act?