APPENDIX XII
Letter from the Foreign Secretary: Access
to information
I am sorry for the long delay in replying to
your letter of 18 November, in which you queried whether the Code
of Practice on Access to Government Information was applicable
to the Committees' requests to be supplied with information in
confidence. You also asked the Government to reconsider its response
(in Cm 5241) to recommendations (b), (m) and (t) in the Committees'
Annual report for 2000 on Strategic Export Controls. I have looked
again at each of these recommendations, but there are good reasons
for the position set out there. For example, on (b) there are
overwhelming arguments against the disclosure whether in confidence
or otherwise of the detailed inter-departmental inputs into decisions,
aside from the further extensive costs and time diversion which
such enquiries would inevitably involve.
As you acknowledge in your letter, Cabinet Office
guidance, Departmental Evidence and Response to Select Committees,
provides for Select Committees to be supplied with information
on a confidential basis in certain circumstances. The Government
does this for the Quadripartite Committee, indeed on an increasing
basis. But there is no obligation on us to do this and on occasion
the public interest will be best served by the non-disclosure,
even on a confidential basis, of certain information.
We consider all requests for information against
the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information. The
fact that Select Committees can receive information on a confidential
basis does not mean that the Government can set aside the Code
of Practice when considering their requests. It is one factor
to consider when assessing, as the Code requires, whether the
harm likely to arise from disclosure would outweigh the public
interest in making the information available.
On occasion this will mean that Select Committees
will receive, on a confidential basis, information that under
the Code would not be disclosed to the public. But on other occasions
the Government may wish to withhold information even from Select
Committees and any such refusals will be explained by reference
to Part II of the Code of Practice. I do not have anything further
to add to the previous response to recommendation (m) or to the
point made in recommendation (t) about the relevance of the Code
of Practice to the provision of information in confidence to Select
Committees.
The Government maintains the refusal to supply
the information requested in recommendation (b). The reference
to the Code in the Government's original response to this recommendation
explained the reason for this refusal. The Government is still
considering what information about the licensing decision referred
to in recommendation (t) can be disclosed to the Committees.
2 May 2003
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