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5.56 pm
Mr. Matthew Taylor (Truro): The theme that has emerged from the previous two speeches is that the present parliamentary process gives insufficient opportunity for people to make a proper contribution--not least through their elected parliamentary representatives--to policy making, the preparation of legislation and, perhaps most important, the scrutiny of Government policies and actions. I agree with that view. All too often, people are kept in the dark. Parliament fails to provide protection against government from behind closed doors.
The code of practice on access to Government information was a welcome--although regrettably small--step to the opening up of government. In theory, the code limits the grounds for withholding information and provides, for the first time, a mechanism for independent review of refusals to give information by officials and Ministers. It is said that Departments are now committed to releasing the internal guidance that they use in their dealings with the public. Even exempted information may, in theory, be disclosed if there is an overriding public interest in doing so.
We should not allow ourselves to be deluded into thinking that that is sufficient. There are serious problems not only in the way in which the code is working in practice, but in its scope, which is far too narrow to be genuinely effective. The Select Committee on the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration recognised a number of failings and omissions, and made some useful recommendations, many of which the Government have accepted. However, they have notably rejected some of the most important recommendations.
I urge the Government to reconsider. The first problem is that public awareness of the code is still too low. Rights that people do not know they have are of limited value. The Government's recent, small-scale advertising has not raised the code's profile. The Government have decided that it is a matter for individual Departments to promote the code, but I believe that central Government must play a key role.
The code currently promises access to information only, and not to documents. That is another significant drawback that allows selective editing to take place. The public have little reason to have confidence in such a scheme. The Minister acknowledged the problems that that causes. Does he believe that the Government should amend the code so that copies of original documents must be provided when requested?
Much information is exempt from the code. Any rational parliamentarian would accept that there are grounds for some exemptions, but other omissions seem draconian. A blanket ban on information relating to
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There is another exemption on disclosure of information held for health and safety purposes, including food safety. Even if the disclosed information were to reveal substantial danger to the public health or safety, the code currently does not help the public obtain such information. After the recent E. coli deaths in Scotland, and the continuing public concern over bovine spongiform encephalopathy and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, its human equivalent, does the Minister not agree that the public have a right to know about possible dangers in the food that they eat?
Many public bodies are exempt completely from the code. It seems ironic that a scheme to encourage open government does not include in its jurisdiction the police, nationalised industries, the Atomic Energy Authority, the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, the Civil Aviation Authority, the Crown Prosecution Service, the Broadcasting Standards Council, training and enterprise councils--the list goes on and on. Even when the ombudsman can investigate, the Government have retained the power to reject any recommendations made.
An obvious, natural and right remedy to the situation is to pass a freedom of information Act. That was, rightly, the conclusion of the Select Committee, not least because it would simplify and unify the hotchpotch of rights to information. Such an Act would cover the entire public sector, provide access to documents--not only edited highlights--and provide everyone with an accessible and enforceable right to information.
The Government have chosen, again, to reject that recommendation, and I do not believe that their reasons for doing so stand up to scrutiny now any more than they did in the past. It has been claimed that, as an administrative document, the code is more flexible and can be amended more easily in the light of experience. The code can be amended more easily--but not necessarily to achieve greater openness.
The lack of a proper Bill has allowed serious anomalies in the permitted exemptions, such as those for immigration and food safety. It has also led to disparate charging regimes, and to Government-filtered information rather than to the provision of full documentation. The lack of a statutory basis means that current statutory secrecy clauses cannot be overridden, and that the Government can prevent the ombudsman from conducting an investigation, because his jurisdiction has simply not been re-examined by the House.
The Government claim that the code has entirely avoided long and expensive disputes in appeals. That is untrue, because, in some cases, the appeals procedure has taken many months. The main reason why there have not been delays is that, as I said, most people are not aware of the procedure or how to make use of it. Therefore, the ombudsman has not been overburdened, as was, and should be, expected if people are encouraged and able to make effective use of the system.
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Liberal Democrats have long called for a freedom of information Act, to end the Government's often obsessive secrecy. We believe that such an Act would enable people to know much more about the conduct of government, and thereby hold Government to account. The Act should confer a general right of access, except in a small number of narrowly defined areas in which it is overwhelmingly in the public interest to ensure that confidentiality is maintained. I shall not list those matters, but I believe they could be determined fairly easily by general agreement.
Complaints about refusal of access to information or unreasonable delay could then be referred to an independent commissioner, who has powers to carry out investigations and to take action to ensure that information is forthcoming. An independent tribunal could be established to hear appeals against decisions, to which both the information holder and the information seeker would be entitled to appeal.
As the Liberal Democrat spokesman on the environment, I have a special interest in ensuring that environmental information is not withheld from the public. The Government have previously stated their agreement, at least in principle, on that point. The European Union directive on freedom of access to information about the environment has been implemented by the environmental information regulations. However, a major deficiency of the regulations is that they lack a specific enforcement mechanism.
More than three years ago, in July 1993, in their Command Paper, "Open Government", the Government promised to introduce a statutory right of access to health and safety information, modelled on the environmental information regulations. They suggested then that the new right could be enforced by a tribunal, and that any such tribunal could also deal with complaints under the environmental information regulations. Although there have been four Queen's Speeches--at least two of which were regarded as "light" in terms of legislative work load--since the publication of that White Paper, there has been no sign of movement to implement the proposal.
The matter was examined, yet again, during the passage of the Environment Act 1995. I introduced an amendment to the Bill that would have allowed for the creation of a specialist tribunal that could hear disputes on the provision of access to environmental information. In responding and arguing against that amendment, the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, the hon. Member for Croydon, Central (Sir P. Beresford), speaking on behalf of the Government, clearly said that he anticipated that there soon would be such a tribunal, and that the work was "well in hand". Since his insistence, that matters were "well in hand", was more than a year ago, perhaps Ministers will tell us today whether we are any closer to setting up that environmental information tribunal.
As the Government have said that the proposed right to health and safety information will not apply retrospectively, information that is currently being gathered will not be accessible even when--or if--the new legislation is enacted; the longer the delay, therefore, the greater the amount of information that will be permanently withheld from the public.
I shall give an example, from the south-west, of why the issue is important to my constituents. Solicitors Toller Beattie have asked for information and correspondence received by the Department of the Environment from South West Water on the delay to four bathing water schemes in the south-west--which are vital for my constituents--and the process under which the list of sensitive areas was reduced, whereas South West Water's list of less sensitive areas was increased. The Department of the Environment made a formal refusal, on the ground that much of the information that they were seeking related to "confidential deliberations" of the group that worked out the proposals for the sensitive and less sensitive areas under the urban waste water treatment directive. Subsequent correspondence, however, showed that the information withheld had not even been considered by that group.
In a democracy, surely the public have a right to know on what basis an area of bathing water has been declared sensitive. In a democracy, surely a water company--which may or may not be polluting that water--should not have the right to withhold such information from the general public, whom it serves. Will the Minister, therefore, give a firm commitment and a fixed timetable for establishing an environmental information tribunal? As the Government have already shown their sympathy for the creation of such a body, and the concept has broad support, surely there is no reason to procrastinate further.
Perhaps I should remind the Chancellor of the Duchy of his own answer, in January 1996, when he appeared before the Select Committee on the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration and was questioned about the delay. He replied:
It appears that the Government are happy to suggest that they will do something and to give assurances that they will do something, but they are far less happy actually to do anything. In the meantime, the public are denied access to a proper enforcement mechanism under the environmental information regulations and to health and safety information.
"A commitment was given, a promise was made, we have not delivered it so far and I want those promises honoured."
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