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Mr. Hawkins: I shall be brief. I entirely understand the concerns expressed by the hon. Members for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) and for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright). Their amendments would remove the clause that gives the Secretary of State power to confer additional exemptions by order and to limit the legislation's application in respect of certain public authorities, and new clause 5 would give the Secretary of State the power to remove exemptions by order.
The Opposition have great sympathy with the amendments, because it would be wrong for the Secretary of State to have the wide-ranging powers conferred on him by the Bill to make information secret by order. We do not believe that the Government's concession is good enough: the Secretary of State should not enjoy such wide-ranging powers. I have no idea whether those who tabled the amendments intend to press them to a Division, but, should they choose to do so, the Opposition will support them.
Mr. Simon Hughes:
I, too, shall be brief in voicing my support for my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) and other hon. Members. I did not serve on the Standing Committee and, in that sense, I come fresh to the issue. I shall reflect on the importance of making the twin excisions to which the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr. Davis) referred: getting rid of clause 6(3)(a) and clause 43.
It is troubling that the Government want clause 6(3)(a) to remain part of the Bill and that we are contemplating allowing it to remain. It is drafted extremely simply:
Schedule 1 lists the bodies in England, Wales and Northern Ireland to which clause 6(3)(a) applies. It lists seven general public authorities: any Government Department, the House of Commons, the House of Lords, the Northern Ireland Assembly, the National Assembly for Wales, an Assembly subsidiary under the Government of Wales Act 1998, and the armed forces. Then the schedule lists 29 varieties of local government body in England and Wales and one in Northern Ireland, ranging from councils to fire authorities. There are eight health authority structures covering England and Wales, and six in Northern Ireland. There are 10 school authorities covering pupil referral units, nursery schools, colleges, schools and halls of universities, and five similar authorities in Northern Ireland. There are nine police agencies--the British Transport police, the Ministry of Defence police and so on.
Part VI contains the greatest list of all. In an idle moment, I added up all the bodies. There are 341 public authorities in England and Wales, and 81 in Northern Ireland.
To go from the sublime to the ridiculous, the Government could suddenly excise the duty in relation to the armed forces, for example, which would be a huge matter, but they also seek to take to themselves power to restrict information relating, for example, to the Advisory Committee on Borderline Substances, the Advisory Committee on Historic Wreck Sites, the Apple and Pear Research Council, the Covent Garden Market Authority, the Expert Group on Cryptosporidium in Water Supplies, the Government Hospitality Fund Advisory Committee for the Purchase of Wine--
Mr. Hawkins:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Hughes:
Not yet--the Great Britain-China Centre, the Place Names Advisory Committee, Sir John Soane's Museum, and the Unlinked Anonymous Serosurveys Steering Group.
To discover that those bodies exist is extraordinary. To discover that the Minister wants power to give such bodies, including the Wine Standards Board of the Vintners Company and the Zoos Forum, the power to be exempted from freedom of information legislation, borders on the ridiculous. We must not allow the Government the power to keep the business of those bodies secret.
Mr. Hawkins:
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one or two of the bodies that he discovered in his detailed research deal with matters of great significance? When he considers the amount of taxpayers' money spent on Government hospitality, he will recall that grave concerns about that have been expressed from his Front Bench and from ours. Any Government are reluctant to be placed under scrutiny, so powers to exempt are extremely worrying.
Mr. Hughes:
The hon. Gentleman's point applies to both ends of Government. The Government may want to cover up how much is spent on the drinks cabinet at No. 10, and they may want to cover up the advice given on BSE, drugs or international agreements. At both ends, it is dangerous. Of course there is a risk to the establishment, but there is no risk to good government, which is what the argument is about.
Mr. Fisher:
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for allowing me to intervene in his delightful speech. Rarely do we hear a speech that is almost like a poem--a poem written by e. e. cummings, it seems. The House needed the light relief.
I imagine that the hon. Gentleman is not suggesting that the bodies that he mentioned are likely to be subject to deletion, as they do not have sufficient weight or seriousness. He will agree, as probably the only hon. Member who has studied the list and counted all 341 bodies, that many are likely to have crucial information that may be embarrassing for themselves or for the Government. I refer to bodies such as the Defence Nuclear Safety Committee, the Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment, the Advisory Committee on NHS Drugs, and the Advisory Committee on Pesticides. Does he agree that those all deal with matters about which the Government may want to delete great swathes of information when it proves embarrassing?
Mr. Hughes:
Both hon. Members who have intervened have made complementary points. We are asked to give the Government ridiculous powers to deal with information that is held by relatively unimportant bodies, but that may be embarrassing, and also powers to take away the citizen's right in relation to crucial issues, such as defence contracts, the Sellafield debate, genetically modified food, drugs labelling and food safety. Those are all issues on which the public send us cards and letters every day, telling us that they want to know what is going on. That is why I hope that having set off, as the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) said, down a road that promised transformation of the system, the Government do not suddenly get cold feet and behave in a way that will embarrass only themselves.
Mr. Tony McWalter (Hemel Hempstead):
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I have much sympathy
The very length of the list means that the Government do not have access to the detailed daily functions of each body. That is the reason for clause 6(3)(a). However, like the hon. Gentleman, I should like some assurance from my hon. Friend the Minister that this is a provisional power which the Government will review some time in the future.
Mr. Hughes:
In his last words, the hon. Gentleman may have touched on the rift. I would be comfortable with a procedure that allowed a Select Committee or a body of the House, at the instigation of a Minister, to look at the list each year and see whether bodies should be added or removed. I am troubled that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome argued at the beginning, the power would be given to one Minister, without Parliament's approval, and without any checking mechanism, to make a decision not just prospectively, but retrospectively, and possibly after someone has asked for the information. I hope the hon. Gentleman will agree that that is several powers too far.
Of course there may be concerns that certain matters need to be kept secret. There are national interests and national security considerations. Let us provide for that in a way that makes clear the guidelines and the parameters. Let us not allow a Minister, prompted by an over-cautious civil servant or a rumour in a newspaper, to say that information will not be available in relation to any organisation defined in the Bill as a public authority.
Mr. Brian White (Milton Keynes, North-East):
In making his valid criticisms, has not the hon. Gentleman demonstrated one of the strengths of the Bill--the range of bodies to which it will apply, for the first time?
Mr. Hughes:
Yes, if I felt securely that those were organisations about which I would have information, but no, if having given ourselves the right to get the information, we give the Minister the ability to take it all away--so yes if the information is secure, but no if it is insecure.
The Secretary of State may by order amend Schedule 1 . . . by limiting to information of a specified description the entry relating to any public authority.
So the Secretary of State can say that freedom of information does not apply to certain types of information relating to any public authority.
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