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Mr. Dalyell: The hon. Member for Aldridge- Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd)--I am tempted to call him my
hon. Friend on this matter--may recollect that, on a lovely spring morning in March 1998, he and I went to the office of the then Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Dr. Clark). We were in the company of Maurice Frankel, who has contributed so much to this issue. It is not a distortion to say that we came away from the meeting, if not elated, at least extremely pleased at what we had heard. We thought that, at long last, we would get a meaningful and significant--although perhaps not perfect--freedom of information Bill of the kind that had been promised to the electorate in 1997. We thought that that contract with the electorate was about to be fulfilled through the hard work of my right hon. Friend.
I was not able to be on the Committee that considered the Bill, but that was not for the want of trying. By some alchemy, as has happened before, I was not selected. [Laughter.] My hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) laughs knowingly. We shall not go into the reasons for that decision.
I should like to ask two questions. The first follows on straightforwardly from the arguments of the right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Mr. Maclennan). What is Ministers' assessment of how the proposed amendment could be used by the courts? If it is important in terms of legal interpretation, it is a significant and important amendment.
My second question is of a slightly different nature. By what alchemy--by what magic--did responsibility for these matters ever fall into the clutches of the Home Office? That is an important question. It was one thing to have the matter in the charge of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, but it is quite another to put it into the clutches of that Department, which has, over the years, done more than any other to suffocate freedom of information. Now is the right moment to ask that question, and I am curious to hear the answer.
Mr. Andrew Mackinlay (Thurrock):
If the Government are to resist new clause 1, which I believe should be inserted into the legislation, the Minister faces a considerable burden--the need to overcome the arguments and to persuade people that the Bill will not be improved by its inclusion. It will not be sufficient to say that the new clause is not necessary: he will need to explain both why it is unnecessary and why it would cause mischief if it were included.
My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) posed a question that I had rehearsed in my mind before rising. The new clause would greatly assist the courts in determining Parliament's intention when they have to consider some challenge to the legislation--as sure as night turns to day, such a challenge will arise. Even if one reads the new clause again and again, it is hard to discover any purpose that could be served by resisting its inclusion, other than the desire to leave matters vague in the hope that, as a result, there will in future be some judgments in favour of deep conservatism in respect of disclosure of information.
I hope that the Government will reflect, both now and if the matter arises in the other place, on how the Bill would be improved by the amendment. My hon. Friend the Minister has a hurdle to overcome, in that the provision appears in comparable statutes of countries around the world, and that the commissioner-elect has
indicated that it would be useful. I hope that my hon. Friend will not rely merely on winning the vote, but will either win the argument and persuade us that the provision is unnecessary, or make a name for himself by indicating the Government's willingness to accept the new clause.
Mr. Simon Hughes (Southwark, North and Bermondsey):
I shall be brief. I was not a member of the Standing Committee and, unlike the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), I did not have a claim and seek to exercise it. However, I pay tribute to colleagues on both sides of the House who have combined to ensure that the important arguments are advanced in unison. We owe a duty to Parliament and to citizens outside this place to recognise that, on freedom of information above all other issues, if there is a choice to be made between the view of Back Benchers and that of the Government--regardless of which party is in government--one should trust the Back Benchers. Furthermore, if a case is backed by a coalition of senior and respected members of all three great parties of this country, the argument must be extremely strong.
The second argument is legalistic. Legislation, even under new rules of interpretation, sometimes goes to the courts and is interpreted on the basis not of what we say in Parliament--although that can be taken into account more than it used to be--but of what is written on the page. Therefore, when it is necessary to establish what is behind the words, what is intended by the phrase, and what is meant by the clause or the Act, unless there is a purposes clause, there may be a legalistic interpretation, not an explained, intended interpretation.
That is a good reason for including a purposes clause, especially in this sort of legislation. A judge or an information commissioner will be in no doubt about the intention of Parliament. Although the formulation may not be perfect, better a formulation that points him in the direction of the intention than no formulation, which leaves him to guess and gives the courts the power to make a restrictive interpretation.
The third reason reflects the pertinent, though mischievously put, point made by the senior and persistent hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell). The Bill has ended up with the Home Office as its captain, steering it through this place. We must be suspicious of government by Home Office on such an issue--as will be reflected in the debates on amendments today and tomorrow--because the Home Office is above all the Department of the security services, the Department of the police, the Department of the prisons, the Department of some of the courts, and the Department of the electoral system.
If ever we ought to be suspicious that a Government Department will want to find ways of not opening up government, that Department is the Home Office. However enlightened are the people in it, the combination of civil servants, advisers and Ministers will in the end say, "We must be careful here. We are the Department that is looked to to preserve the interests of the state." The move from Minister who is free-standing and much more accountable to Parliament to Minister in the Home Office, whoever the holder of that office is, is bound to take with it some suspicion that we are confusing the duties of government with the proper assessment of Government.
I hope that we will heed the voices from the three parties that have argued coherently and effectively, and experiences elsewhere. I have not seen the Minister's brief, but whatever it contains, I hope that he will be brave, as I once saw a colleague of his, now the Deputy Prime Minister, be. He ripped up and threw away his brief, saying "I am not reading this rubbish. I am going to say what I think." I hope that the Minister will make a great a name for himself by liberating himself from the brief, and liberating Parliament from the Home Office.
Dr. David Clark (South Shields):
I shall be brief. I did not intend to speak on the amendment, but I have been provoked so to do. When I introduced the White Paper to the House way back in December 1997, I felt that it was the right vehicle, and that it contained the right tone to create a new relationship between the citizens of this country and the Government.
I did so in the knowledge that, just six months previously, the citizens had indicated, by the representatives whom they sent to this legislature, that they wanted change. I was conscious also that we were entering a new millennium and that we were one of the worst countries among western democracies for giving access and information to our citizens.
That was the philosophy behind my intent. The purpose of the White Paper, in essence, was to change the culture of our political elite. I had no illusions about how difficult that would be, not only in central Government, but in all public administrations. However, I thought that it was the right thing to do.
We devised a system that was set out in the White Paper. There has been talk this afternoon about lawyers and legal interpretation. They are important matters and good reasons why we may need a purpose clause. More important, however, is the need to get the message across from the House that with this legislation, we want to change the political culture of our society. We want to renegotiate the relationship between our citizens and our Government, and that can be done only by ensuring that the interpretation of the Bill is that the presumption must be in favour of openness and not of secrecy.
I believe that new clause 1 is very much better than amendment No. 100. However, whether the new clause is accepted or not, it is important that the message emanate from this legislature loud and clear that we want a change of culture.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Mike O'Brien):
I thank all colleagues who served on the Committee that considered the Bill and those who have contributed to this debate. These are important issues, and in many ways they are difficult to get right. The Government have been listening with a great deal of care throughout the debates.
5.30 pm
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