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Mr. Straw: I understand my hon. Friend's concern about what happened at Hillsborough. As she will know, I arranged the scrutiny of events there, under Lord Justice Stuart-Smith.
I said earlier that no freedom of information regime anywhere in the world was a panacea for bad government. I also agree with my hon. Friend that when mistakes are made, public authorities become defensive, although there is one exception to that rule--the Home Office. Over the centuries, the Home Office has become so used to human error that it just gets on with things and improves situations.
I also believe--this is probably the wisdom of Home Secretaries past and present--that it is the worst thing of all to end up being defensive if mistakes are made. That just makes life more difficult. If a mistake is made, the best thing to do is, in Lord Healey's famous phrase, stop digging.
Let me return to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Helen Jackson). A freedom of information regime cannot be a panacea, and people should not believe that it can be; but, in the case of Hillsborough and in many other cases that have been raised, a regime such as that in the Bill would have helped--and if, God forbid, such a terrible tragedy occurred in the future, would help--to ensure the provision of much more timely information. Much of the information about Hillsborough that has subsequently emerged would have had to be made available much earlier, up to the point at which it would not prejudice an investigation.
Mr. Radice:
My right hon. Friend's proposal is clearly an improvement, in that the decision will be taken at a higher level than that of a Minister who is concerned with protecting his or her own reputation or the narrow interests of a specific Department. That is crucial. According to the New Zealand model, involving a collective decision by the Cabinet, a decision about the public interest is indeed a decision about the public interest. That is what we want to put in the Bill.
As I have said, my right hon. Friend's proposal is a great improvement. I suggest that he now try to find a form of words such as "collective responsibility" or "collective action". An explanation can be made elsewhere, but the requirement for a collective decision should be in the Bill, because it is the collective element that will ensure the proper balance of the public interest.
Mr. Straw:
An amendment in respect of Cabinet Ministers will have to be tabled in the other place. I shall reflect on what my right hon. Friend says, although I am advised that there are complicated reasons why it is not possible to enact it. Sometimes complicated reasons turn out to be no particular reason at all. My right hon. Friend must, however, bear in mind my point that some functions are quasi-judicial.
Mr. Mackinlay:
I am grateful to the Home Secretary, and I apologise to him and to the House for my sedentary remarks about him not allowing us to intervene later.
A few moments ago, the Home Secretary said that the National Criminal Intelligence Service was not covered by the provisions, but I should like to explain to him why some of us want to push the envelope on the matter. NCIS has an interface with our security and intelligence services, but--unusually in a principal western democracy--there is no parliamentary oversight of the jurisdiction of any of those services. If we were able to subject NCIS and some of the security and intelligence services to the Bill's provisions, it would go some way to mitigate the fact that there is no proper parliamentary oversight of them. If we had proper parliamentary oversight, we probably would not have to push the envelope. However, we have to deal with that double deficiency.
Before the Home Secretary says that we have the Intelligence and Security Committee, under the chairmanship of the right hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King), I should point out that the membership of that Committee is selected by the head of the security services--the Prime Minister. It is selected not by Parliament, but by the man who is in charge, and that just cannot be right.
Mr. Straw:
My hon. Friend's last point is his worst one. There are arguments in favour of having a Select Committee on intelligence and security agencies. However, selection of members of the Intelligence and Security Committee, which has been established by an Act of Parliament, is done through the usual channels. In case he has not noticed, selection for Select Committees is done by the same people, through the usual channels. He therefore made a distinction without a difference.
My hon. Friend also mentioned other western democracies, but I do not know which ones he had in mind. When I think of paradigms of transparency in terms of the relationship between intelligence and security agencies and Ministers and Parliament, many European countries do not come to mind as being at the top of the league table. Our security and intelligence agencies necessarily have to work in secrecy, but, in practice and in statute, they are subject--
Mr. Mackinlay:
What about Australia and the United States?
Mr. Straw:
I thought that my hon. Friend was perhaps thinking of some of our closer neighbours, such as France.
Mr. Shepherd:
What about parliamentary democracies such as Canada?
Mr. Straw:
Yes. There are slightly strengthened arrangements in some countries, but less strong arrangements in others. However, I think that our arrangements are pretty satisfactory.
My hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Mr. Mackinlay) should remember that NCIS was established by an Act of Parliament that Labour Members supported, and that there is a service authority that operates very similarly to the police authority.
Mr. Fisher:
Before the Home Secretary finishes, will he say something more about local authorities? In the past half hour, he has moved a great deal, and it has been an
Mr. Straw:
I take my hon. Friend's compliment as intended. It is in the nature of Home Office Bills, particularly constitutional ones, that they are subject to amendment. That is an important part of the process. That was true of the Human Rights Act 1998. The debates were less well attended because the issues were less controversial, but there were some distinguished contributions from both sides. The Bill was improved by the dialectical process on the Floor of the House. As a result, those on the Opposition Front Bench formally supported its Third Reading. It is important that the Act has such all-party support.
My hon. Friend invited me to talk about local authorities. I was trying to do that about 20 minutes ago, but I thought that it was important to take interventions first. In the arrangements for Executive certification, we decided that it was important that only elected individuals--Cabinet Ministers at central Government level and councillors at local government level--should be able to issue certificates. Any way of judging the public interest other than through a commissioner has to be carried out through systems of democratic accountability, not indirectly through the decision of an official, however well qualified that official may be. There is consistency between our proposals for central Government and local government.
For reasons that I explained earlier, because the systems for running local government are in a state of flux, with different authorities choosing from the range of options with which my hon. Friends will be only too familiar--I shall come to the London mayor in a second--we have had to provide that the level at which decisions are made by councillors will be specified by order. The Local Government (Access to Information) Act 1985 and other legislation already make extensive arrangements for information to be made available to local authority voters. The arrangements are different, because local authorities operate differently from central Government Departments and non-departmental public bodies. In many respects they are already more extensive.
My hon. Friend should not have too many worries about the Greater London Authority, because the Greater London Authority Act 1999, passed with the approbation of the House, provides extensive arrangements for access to information.
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