Placing information in the public
domain
18. The coming into force of the provisions of the
Freedom of Information Act 2000, which applies to Parliament and
its select committees, has brought added focus to the way in which
information held by the Committee is made available to the public.
It is already the case that much information held, in the form
of formal evidence to our inquires, is published with the oral
evidence taken and with our reports. Indeed the placing of information
in the public domain is one of the main ways of achieving our
objective of contributing to the public debate. Additional administrative
information is made available in such publications as this report
and in the other documents referred to above,[12]
and under the Act much of this information may be released earlier
than before. Nevertheless, some information held will come under
one or more of the statutory exemptions relating to parliamentary
privilege or personal or commercial confidentiality. As with other
public bodies, it remains to be seen whether any difficulties
will arise.
19. However, even though formal evidence received
is generally reported to the House and published with the Committee's
oral evidence and reports, the Committee occasionally receives
other formal evidence which is not published solely because it
does not relate directly to an ongoing inquiry and there is no
convenient opportunity to report it. It would be helpful to make
this material generally available. Accordingly, we are taking
the opportunity provided by this report to report to the House
such evidence received recently (listed in Annex 3); this includes,
among other papers, memoranda requested from the Treasury relating
to financial stability and the response to international financial
crises.
8 
