Freedom of Information

Matthew Oliver (London, Unlock Democracy): The Conservative front-bench have been quick to claim credit for yesterday’s Government U-Turn on parliamentary expenses. Whilst it is true that their move meant that any vote would have been eye wateringly tight for even the most optimistic Government Whip, the real success is due to the online and media campaign run by amongst others, Unlock Democracy and mySociety.

What is also true however is that a significant minority of Conservative backbenchers are seething tonight. Cocooned inside the Westminster Bubble and their 1997-proof safe seats, these MPs are finding themselves slightly at odds with today’s changing society, which no longer views the Commons as a political private members club

Tom Griffin (London, OK): The Government has today abandoned plans to hold a Commons vote on exempting MP's expenses from the Freedom of Information Act.

Earlier, Mr Brown blamed the Conservatives for what he said was a breakdown of a consensus over the way forward.

"We thought we had agreement on the FOI Act as part of this wider package," he told MPs.

"Recently that support that we believed we had from the main opposition party was withdrawn.

"So on this particular matter, I believe all-party support is important and we will continue to consult on that matter."

mySociety suggests the u-turn is a victory for the internet generation:

Peter Facey (London, Unlock Democracy): The following announcement originally appeared on the Unlock Democracy website.

Dear friend,

Today I had intended to write to you to encourage you to take part in the Convention on Modern Liberty, of which Unlock Democracy is proud to be a partner organisation. I had intended to write about what an inspiring event I hope it will be, the impressive lineup of speakers, the nationwide parallel sessions that Unlock Democracy is organising with NO2ID and its timeliness.

But events, as ever, have overtaken us.

On Thursday, the Government sneaked out the draft of the innocuous sounding “Freedom of Information (Parliament) Order.” This “statutory instrument” (not an act), if passed, will

“…change the scope of the application of the [Freedom of Information] Act in relation to information held by the House of Commons and House of Lords regarding expenditure in respect of Members of both Houses. This includes information held by either House about expenses claimed by and allowances paid to Members. Such information is no longer within the scope of the Act.”

David Erdos (Oxford, CSLS): The Convention on Modern Liberty scheduled for next February 28  has the potential to be a defining moment for the UK.  The ad hoc team putting it together have assembled an exciting array of prominent figures allied to all the main political parties and to none.  More important, the Convention will examine many pressing issues facing us in the area of human rights and executive power. Nevertheless, I am troubled. Those creating the Convention seem to have conceptualized the issue of privacy/data protection so that only one aspect of it is given any emphasis.

Stuart Weir (London, Democratic Audit): The Damian Green case and the prosecution of the journalist Sally Murrer – a more serious and ominous case – has raised suspicions that the common law offence of misconduct in public office is now being used to re-criminalise the leaking of official information. It wouldn’t be the first time that the authorities rummaged in the common-law ragbag to nab people or discourage conduct otherwise out of their reach.

Maurice Frankel, director of the Campaign for Freedom of Information, has raised the issue in a letter to The Times on 4 December (that coincided with a salvo from Vernon Bogdanor in his spat with William Rees-Mogg over the arrest of Damian Green).

Guy Aitchison (London, OK): The sixth annual FOI Live conference took place this week. Organised by the Constitution Unit, it brought together key players in the world of Freedom of Information and Data Protection in the UK. You can access the presentations given at the conference here. Otherwise the BBC's Martin Rosenbaum has a handy summary of the day on his excellent Open Secrets blog.

The conference heard from Maurice Frankel of the Campaign for Freedom of Information on how the MoJ Guidance on how to process FOI requests conflicts with decions by the Information Tribunal. "For example," asks Rosenbaum, "does the time taken to redact information count when deciding if a request is too costly to process? The MoJ says yes, the Tribunal says no."

Information Commissioner Richard Thomas revealed the difficulties his office has been having dealing with a massive backlog of complaints - a problem also highlighted by Frankel who "showed that the ICO took an average of 258 days to first make contact with the public authority subject to the complaint involved."

The MoJ is apparently putting together a "package of next steps" for the extension of FoI to other bodies following Brown's surprise announcement last year. The Government will surely need to provide more resources for the ICO as well as proper legal guidance for civil servants if it takes this welcome step.

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): All MP's expenses are likely to be published. The result predicted by Nick Robinson is that they will need to be paid more. It is, he said, if I heard him right on the 10 o'clock BBC news, "a revolution caused by transparency". If only! Let's see what he says in his blog. Answer: he didn't use the phrase

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): On Monday, James Macintyre and Andrew Grice in the Indie had a strong story on how the Prime Minister refuses to reveal his contacts with Murdoch. They note Gordon Brown has announced a good policy on Freedom of Information which Maurice Frankel posted about in OK. It seems he also released details of Blair's contacts with Murdoch only days after becoming Prime Minister last June. "But he is remaining coy about his own discussions with him".

Jon Bright (London, OK): The Commons Justice Committee is recommending today that tough new laws be brought in to strengthen data protection. The banner headline for most of the papers has been potential criminal prosecution for anyone that breaches security recklessly or repeatedly. This is the kind of response that is needed after 'datagate', and I hope the government acts on it (indeed the Ministry of Justice rather tiresomely claimed that it had 'thought of that already'). But there was another more important recommendation, which might have got lost a bit - a legal obligation to report significant data losses to those affected, and to the Information Commissioner.

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): A copy of the "Briefing memorandum" codenamed 'Blackbird' and put together by "Merrill Lynch, Citi and the Blackstone Group" for the sale of Northern Rock was apparently leaked to the Financial Times. An injuction was placed on it to prevent its publication. Thanks to Guido Fawks, who has a good post on this, you can read it the full document here. There is an entertaining, aka shocking discussion of what happened on the FT site here. Will Hutton today wrote an angry case for nationalisation rather than permit a billion pound plus plus rip-off of the taxpayer. He outlines as much as he can of what has been gagged in the memorandum, describes as "jaw-dropping" the prospective government subsidy to the circling city sharks, insists that having taken all the risk with public money the Treasury must protect this investment by nationalisation and, later, a full-value sell-off and not allow us to be swindled. Darling, says Hutton, "must bite the bullet and for his own reputation and that of the government, he must do it soon". Clear fighting prose, Will. But what if Darling doesn't? As for the gagging order, Guido says, and it sounds right to me, "The reasons for this being suppressed are not commercial, they are political. Everybody in the City already knows what is in the memo. The government just doesn't want the political embarrassment".

Maurice Frankel (London, Campaign for Freedom of Information): Gordon Brown’s recent Speech on Liberty is a turning point in the government’s approach to freedom of information. For the first time since 1997, a prime minister has not only spoken out clearly in favour of FOI but proposed to extend, rather than restrict, the legislation.

Guy Aitchison (London, OK): One of the unforeseen benefits of recent attempts to restrict access to Freedom of Information might have been to spare us from Alistair Campbell's painful attempts at humour. This is revealed in the memos between him and Blair on the proposed appearance of the PM in the Simpsons which have been the subject of a Freedom of Information disclosure (thanks to Martin Rosenbaum's excellent BBC blog on FOI for drawing my attention to this). Reading Campbell's suggestions for the script it seems he was determined to turn the episode into an advert on behalf of the British tourist board, having TB advise the family "you should go to my birthplace, Edinburgh, there's a big castle over there." "And why not stay in one of its many luxury, centrally located hotels?" he might have added... Campbell also tells Blair that due to the attention the episode will attract and "the opposition we'll get for you doing it" there must be a "rationale" behind it, "namely that you seize any opportunity to promote Britain." Replace the word "Britain" with the word "yourself" and I think you have a fair insight in to Blair's motivation sans spin... Am I being too harsh on our ex-PM (for once)? Although the finished episode wasn't as satirical as it could have been, Campbell didn't succeed in sucking all of the humour out of it...

James Graham (London, Unlock Democracy): The Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill, commented on many times below, is dead. Not a single member of the House of Lords would sponsor it. This clearly shows the importance of having a bicameral Parliament, although the fact that not a single peer would sponsor the bill appears to have rather more to do with the threatening noises emanating from our 'feral' media than the innate good sense of unelected politicians. The Freedom of Information Act is still very young, having only been in force for 30 months. It is not surprising that it is experiencing some growing pains. We may have had a change in the law, but the British government's culture of jealously guarding its secrets has still not been transformed.

Maurice Frankel (London, CFoI): I'm sure the message from the 7 MPs reported by OurKingdom below is sent in good faith, but I believe they are mistaken. The extract from the House of Commons guidance they quote could lead people to draw the wrong conclusion because it is incomplete. It should have said that a public authority may be required to release an MP's correspondence with it unless exemptions apply. Indeed the Parliamentary briefing itself (opens PDF document) goes on to state that "a Member's correspondence may contain data which is personal to the MP and also data which is personal to the constituent" (paragraph 7), and adds that "if a request asks for the personal data of someone [other than the applicant themself] ... then that information will be exempt if its disclosure would contravene any of the data protection principles in the Data Protection Act" (paragraph 19).

OurKingdom: This letter has been sent to their colleagues by Labour MPs by Tony Lloyd, Angela Eagle, Kevan Jones, Ann Cryer, Joan Ruddock, Martin Salter and Don Touhig:

Further to David Maclean’s Bill on Friday you might be interested to see the leaflet published by the House of Commons in December 2005 which makes it absolutely clear that constituents’ correspondence can be revealed without their consent under the F.O.I. The entire document can also be viewed at http://dfaweb.parliament.uk/members/publications/foi_mems_correspondence.pdf (This is the House of Commons link, OurKingdom readers can click here: FoI, House of Commons document)

Mark Fisher (Stoke-on-Trent, MP): It is sad to see a good MP like Graham Allen, who has a long and honourable track record in supporting Freedom of Information, falling for the non-arguments of the David Maclean Bill.

This is not about protecting the confidentiality of the correspondence between MPs and their constituents. That privacy is well covered by a combination of the FoI and the Data Protection Acts. No evidence beyond anecdote and hearsay has been produced that this privacy is at risk. Indeed the Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas, has not received a single enquiry or complaint about any breach of privacy either from an MP or from a member of the public. If there is evidence of correspondence being published in breach of the above Acts then there would be a case for an Inquiry, either by the Government or by a Select Committee, into how the Acts are being implemented which could, if necessary, lead to a tightening of the legislation or the issuing of fresh guidance to public bodies about what should or should not be released. If the problem is implementation, the solution is not to exempt Parliament from its provisions but to strengthen or clarify the legislation.

Maurice Frankel (London, CFoI): Contrary to what Graham Allen says below in his post, the Maclean bill is not about protecting MP's constituents’ privacy. That is obvious from its drafting. The bill exempts any correspondence between an MP and a public authority, including his or her lobbying about policy issues which the public should be able to see. An amendment to limit the exemption to letters about identifiable constituents was rejected by the Bill’s supporters on Friday, including Graham Allen.

Graham Allen (Nottingham, MP): My commitment to freedom of information is stronger than ever, I'm politically very clear what it is for in building our democracy. Similarly I'm clear what it is NOT for. I don't believe constituents correspondence to me should be the source of entertainment for the media or be open to those institutions who are complained about, so that they can take retaliatory action against individual whistle blowers. In the week when the next Prime Minister announces a new Constitution Bill, the press are only interested in MP's costs. So lets not mistake the media for the democratic opposition. The media are delighted with their own incestuous monopoly relationship with the executive. They see parliament -even in its current, pathetically weakened state - as a rival to disparage, not as an institution to strengthen in building the legitimate, elected accountability which would relegate them (as they see) or elevate them (as I see it) to reporting the news.

Spyblog: The 3rd Reading on amending the Freedom of Information Act was passed by 96 to 25. Will the House of Lords reject this wretched Bill, which goes much, much, further in crippling freedom of information than the topics of MPs’ constituency correspondence or even their expenses? What a pathetic start to the Brown era. Full list of the MPs who supported it is here.

Jon Bright (London, OK): David Maclean MP's Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill will be debated in the commons tomorrow. The amendment, which would exempt both parliament and MP's communications with public authorities from public scrutiny, is defended, by Jack Straw among others, on the grounds that it preserves the privacy of constituents who have corresponded with their MPs, but has been attacked vociferously by a number of campaigning groups. The Freedom of Information blog, along with many others, argue that the existing FOI act already allows for the exemption of private communications between MPs and constituents, while Mark Fisher MP argues in the Independent that the bill has been pushed through by "procedural sleight of hand", with little real scrutiny. Both argue the real motive is to conceal parliamentary members' spending.