| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. Simon Hughes: I shall speak to the Government amendments as a surrogate member of the so-called cross-party group, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Mr. Maclennan) has temporarily gone elsewhere and will return shortly.
Government amendment No. 44 groups logically with new clause 3, and I shall deal with those provisions last. I heard what the Minister said about amendment No. 45, and I accept that it is intended to set wide parameters although the Government intend a 20-working-day compliance period. The amendment provides an outer limit--a welcome fall-back position, which we understand and do not oppose.
Amendment No. 54 effectively requires that public authorities who refuse to furnish an applicant with details must explain the appeal procedure. That is clearly welcome, and provides the citizen with access to pursue his or her rights where applicable.
Amendment Nos. 89 and 90 amend schedule 6, and will, in opening the compliance procedure on personal information, have an effect similar to that of amendment No. 44 on general information. It is logical to amend the Data Protection Acts in addition to making provision in the Bill. The Data Protection Registrar, who will perform the balancing act on the public's behalf, should also have a duty not simply to say that information cannot be provided, but to put a case on the record. We accept that logical clarification.
All three amendments benefited from debate in Committee, which is exactly how the Bill has been improved in small ways. I pay tribute to the Government for responding in that way.
I shall leave it to other hon. Members, particularly the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Fisher), who is part of the leading and drafting team, to speak to new clause 3, but I have one point to make which links it to amendment No. 44. I understand the logic of the Minister's argument that specific obligations, such as providing that simply to say no to a request should be inadequate, must be clarified. Specific duties are better where possible. Amendment No. 44 is welcome for that reason, but the Minister implied that there was a difference of scale between small amendments in the right direction, such as amendments Nos. 44 and 54, and new clause 3.
Mr. Lock:
May I draw the hon. Gentleman's attention to clause 44(4), which provides that
Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham):
The strength of the parliamentary question.
Mr. Hughes:
Indeed it is, although this one happens to be a planted parliamentary question, which is never quite so good, even if it is a convenient hook.
Our slight difficulty is that, as parliamentary questions are answered from 3.30 pm and our debate began at about 4.30 pm, not many hon. Members can have found, read, marked, learned and inwardly digested the draft code in time to tell the Minister whether it is just as we like it. I accept that there has been progress, and I take the technical point that we cannot have a code of practice until the commissioner has been appointed, and that requires enactment of the Bill. However, I am not entirely comfortable about being asked to accept an argument that counters new clause 3, which was tabled several days ago, by use of a draft code that we have not yet seen. I am not being over-aggressive about that point, but it is unfortunate that we could not have seen the code earlier in order to decide how far it addressed the concerns in new clause 3. The other place can of course deal with these things, but we should have the maximum information available to us.
My second point about new clause 3 is that it obliges hundreds of public authorities listed in the schedules to ensure that people are assisted rather than having difficulties put in their way. I have been in the House long enough to recall various Bills to open up local government or give access to medical and local government records. They are all about giving people rights to go to the town hall, ask for a photocopier, have copies made, and so on.
All that is fine, and the small print is important. However, the new clause proposes that steps should be taken. I do not think that it is necessarily bad law or flawed to make a general proposition simply because, say, a patent agency will clearly act differently from, say, a water authority. The point is similar to one made during our debates on the purpose clause. The new clause would establish--much less controversially or complicatedly than the purposes clause would have done--an obligation across public authorities to help the citizen. We would be using statute to remind public bodies that they are
agencies of the public, not authorities over the public. "Public authority" is sometimes an unhelpful term for agencies intended to be systems that support the public.
Mr. David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden):
They are public servants.
Mr. Hughes:
Indeed, they are public servants, funded by public money and answerable to the public. In this age, when the Government divest themselves of functions, that often makes it more difficult to get access to information. We must all be aware of that problem and I am sure that we all come across it regularly in our constituency work.
I understand, but do not accept, the proposition that we cannot, in the Bill, assert the duty on the public authority to provide information. It is not impossible to take public authorities to court and to arbitrate, either internally through a commissioner or externally through a court. This country has come a long way in administrative law in the past 30 years, and courts are used to dealing with it.
We hope that the Bill will reduce litigation; one of its purposes is to ensure that people do not have to hunt for information through the courts because they will automatically have access to it. I fear that there may be a series of legal battles ahead to establish those rights. Around the world, access to information from the state has not been achieved without such battles. However, it is not sufficient for Ministers to say that a general proposition and duty cannot be added to the Bill or that such a proposition and duty could not, when coupled with guidance, be adapted to different public authorities, large or small, or broad or narrow in their remit.
Mr. Hawkins:
Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that we share his concern that the Government's alteration of their stance and, in particular, their approach to the matter that he has raised, will not only increase complexity, which was discussed at great length in Committee, but lead to more litigation, at least in the first few years after the Bill becomes an Act?
Mr. Hughes:
The hon. Gentleman helpfully takes me to my next point. One of the problems is that, following the history of the parliamentary drafting mechanism, we still legislate in a complicated way. As somebody who, like others, has trained as a lawyer but who tries to make sure that the law is accessible, I have to say that it is still difficult for citizens to find out what rights they have. One of the best ways to ensure that they know their rights is to have a proposition and an explanation of how they can avail themselves of their rights.
That argument holds water for the reason that most countries in the world have a written constitution: such constitutions do not include every minutiae of right and entitlement against every agency of the state; they assert a proposition to which people respond. That proposition is a statement of the balance of power.
Before issuing or revising any code under this section, the Secretary of State shall consult the Commissioner?
4 Apr 2000 : Column 861
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it would be impossible to finalise a form of the code before Royal Assent, and, therefore, before the formal appointment of the commissioner, because the required consultation could not have taken place?
Mr. Hughes:
I understand that point, but the Government have been helpful to Parliament in establishing the practice of publishing draft Bills and codes where possible. [Interruption.] If I read the Minister's lips correctly, he is saying, "We have." Certainly, today's written question implies that that is so. The hon. Member for Hove (Mr. Caplin) asked
the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he will publish the draft code of practice to be made under Clause 44.
Miracle of miracles, the draft code has doubtless been published this afternoon, just in time for our debate.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |