They've Gone and Done It

Soon to be no longer a public body as far as the FOI act is concerned

The image of parliament took another dent today as a valiant rearguard action to talk out the Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill today failed and it passed its report stage and third reading.

In a naked act of self-interest, MPs decided to bring to an end the equal treatment of parliament under the FOI Act after just two years. Two years in which not a single case could be pointed to in which the work of parliament was damaged by the increased openness, unless you count some temporary embarrassment over MPs expenses. Cases were raised by the proponents of the bill, however not one was shown to have arisen because of the FOI act, or that could not have been dealt with under the data protection act.

The worst performance was undoubtedly during the third reading where only David Maclean, whose private members' bill this is, spoke in favour of the bill. He failed to address any of many points raised against the bill, preferring to concentrate on the fact there had been unanimity when it was considered in committee. This being a private members' bill of course Mr Maclean was entitled to, and did, appoint whichever 'politically reliable' members the committee he saw fit with no necessity for balance. Their 'detailed scrutiny' apparently was wrapped up in an hour.

I'm starting to tot up the numbers on who votes how on decisions that impact on the transparency and effectiveness of democracy in this country, or impinge on real civil liberties (as opposed to those concerned with non-senisical freedoms under the human rights act). Just like the league table after the first games of the season the figures are not a very interesting read at the moment. It's safe to say though, for using the very valuable opportunity of getting the chance to introduce a private members' bill to advance such a self-serving cause, it's safe to say on my scoring system Maclean is rock-bottom of the table and will need to play out of his skin for the rest of the season to avoid the wooden spoon.

Another dishonorable mention goes to Bridget Prentice, Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Ministry of Justice, who stretched the definition of 'neutral' in describing the government's stance on the bill far beyond breaking point. I guess you could say the shadow front bench's performance this time was an improvement on the last time the bill was debated, in that they cowered in the trenches rather than give the same kind of neutral support as the government, as they did previously. At least John Redwood, as a senior figure, did stand up and argue against the bill.

Update: I have just learned via Conservative Home that Shadow Solicitor General Jonathan Djanogly did speak out to give the Conservative position:

"Let me say from the outset that the Conservative Party remains neutral on this bill."

I probably had my head down the toilet at the time. I won't comment further, not knowing if there was anything else in tone or substance that indicated the same tacit approval as the government gave. At the end of the day Maclean is one of theirs though and it's hard to believe some pressure could not have been brought to bear.

A valiant effort by the same team as at the last debate who all deserve the greatest of credit. Sadly, for me, they were dominated by Lib Dems (with honourable contributions from both government and Conservative benches), but sadly fell a few minutes short, thanks to some manipulation from the chair, of the 2:30PM deadline when this piece of legislation would have been consigned to the dustbin where it belongs.

As so often these days, it will be up to the unelected peers to try and put a spanner in the works. As we've seen over all manner of subjects, including the most odious of the lot, ID cards, I have every confidence they will try to do the right thing, where our elected representatives have failed us so badly.

(Semi)official Endorsement for Secrecy Bill

According to the BBC the PLP Committee is attempting to shepherd the NuLab flock into the aye lobby on Friday to back the Freedom of Information (Amendment) bill on Friday.

Martin Salter from the committee makes the usual pathetic argument that the change is necessary to:

"'plug the dangerous and unintended consequence' of private correspondence between an MP and a constituent being released."

As usual no attempt is made to rebut the argument of the opponents of the bill, that the Data Protection Act means that there is nothing whatsoever to plug in this area.

While both government and opposition front benches remain officially neutral, it's almost impossible to infer anything other than qui tacit consentire videtur. They want the bill, but are too spineless to stand up and justify their support. It's a mistake in my opinion, as they are now pretty clearly associated with the sentiment of the bill anyway.

What about their respective sheep? In the absence of any real rebuttal of the counterarguments, I can/would only like to think one of two things. Either they have been too lazy to try to understand the nature of the protection the DPA offers, or somehow try and imagine there is some infitesimily small chance of an infitesimily small hole in the existing legislation that they can't quite envisage. To the first group I would say that they are in the wrong job (see www.chilternhundreds.com); to the second I would say that science teaches that there are many theoretical situations where there are infitesimily small chances of a myriad strange things happening, but we don't, for example see the 'Palace of Westminster, Spontaneous Appearance of African Elephants (Prohibition Of) Bill' mentioned in Hansard for the time being.

It will be unusual to be cheering on the likes of Simon Hughes but he and his LibDem colleague Norman Baker's work, along with principled support from other MPs of other parties, to block this bill and maintain both openness and the appearance of openness, is to be applauded.

The Freedom of Information (About everyone but us) Bill Returns

David MacLean MP's objectionable private members' Freedom of Information (Amendment) bill returns to centre stage on Friday for it's delayed report stage. The ease with which time seems to find time in parliament's timetable can only be interpreted as de facto government support, and sadly the limited utterances from the opposition front bench suggests that they aren't exactly set against it. The argument that it's a matter for the house to decide is irrelevant the tone from the front benches is easily picked up by the public at large.

For those who haven't encountered this gem of a bill it's supposed purpose is to prevent Freedom of Information (FOI) Act requests forcing the disclosure of privileged communications between a Member of Parliament and his/her constituents or communications with third parties on the behalf of the constituent. It's mechanism for achieving this perfectly reasonable goal is to, uniquely among public bodies, remove both houses of Parliament from the scope of the Freedom of Information Act.

As it happens, should the bill pass into law, nothing whatsoever will change. House authorities, including the speaker himself, have committed themselves to continue to publish information in areas such as travel expenses that have already been subject to FOI requests. On the other side it is abundantly clear that the existing provisions of the Data Protection Act (DPA) already provides all the legal framework needed to protect the privacy of parliamentarian's communications. Even if there was a potential loophole in the protection offered by the DPA, something which I doubt, working in spheres often impacted by its provisions, it could be closed with amendments of narrower scope. It is not, for example, possible to use a FOI request to get hold of our medical records from the NHS. For this we will probably have to wait for the first security hole in the NHS computerised patient record which will, doubtlessly within weeks of the system's eventual launch, have all our medical secrets available to anyone with an Internet connection.

Despite the limited impact the amendments they nonetheless offend on several levels.

Firstly there's the contrast with the last time I recall MPs voting on matters that ultimately concerned the terms and conditions of their employment. We were told that they had 'no choice' about voting through a huge top up to their pensions pool because not to do so would have required amending the law which simply wasn't practical. I've got a suspicion that, should the parties hammer out a deal on state funding for their operations, then as with the FOI (Amendment) bill, time will be found in Westminster's busy calendar to get the legislation through.

There are also the questions raised by the fact that the DPA already performs the functions of the proposed amendments, if you accept the functions of the amendments are those publicly stated. I don't go in for conspiracy theories but it's easy to wonder if the FOI requests that worry Mr MacLean and his supporters are the ones that haven't been made yet. At a more trivial level I suppose the DPA would allow for statistical abstracts of communications to be made available under the FOI. Frankly I don't think it's a bad thing if this brought some honesty to the lazy rhetoric about their '...bulging mail bags...etc' during debates on a particular subject, with some bulging mail bags being shown to contain just a couple of letters. You could take this to the extreme of revealing the existence or non-existence of a single letter, however the Information Commissioner appears to have rubbished the idea that there is a usable loophole here.

Finally there is simply the image that bills like this present of Parliament. I think one of the most attractive features of the UK system of government is the relatively limited special privileges that our representatives award themselves. There are a few archaic boons associated with the status of the Palace of Westminster, a sensibly minimalistic concept of Parliamentary Privilege and a generally reasonable approach to remuneration and expenses, but I don't find, at the moment, anything that would offend a reasonable person greatly. We have seen, in limited numbers, our representatives as defendants in the courts of law, and seem able to contemplate prosecutions at the heart of government. The fact that this happens is a sign of a healthy attitude to such eventualities and our MPs don't rush through legislation to 'grant immunity in order to protect the dignity of....etc.' in the continental style is admirable. We've taken steps in the right direction in recent years, from televising of proceedings to the FOI act itself and it's sad to see regressive steps like the one proposed that separate Parliament from the rest of public life, or worse still doors for corruption like state party funding being opened.

As a Conservative voter by instinct I'm slightly disappointed to see Team Cameron at best having the inability to quietly have their former whip kick his bill into the long grass, or at worst giving tacit support to it. It is true that there are more positive signs, such as ideas on MP's pay, though here I would like to see an approach more akin to Amendment XXVII to the US constitution, to ensure that the matter isn't simply handed over to some tame quango simply to disclaim responsibility, and to ensure that the whatever is done that the remit does not stop at basic salary. Overall the effect, as with so many other areas of policy is to take the shine off what would otherwise be a very clear, consistent and appealing message.