Twelfth Standing Committee on Delegated Legislation
Thursday 9 December 2004
[Mr. Eric Forth in the Chair]
Draft Environmental Information Regulations 2004
2.30 pm
The Minister for the Environment and Agri-environment (Mr. Elliot Morley): I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Environmental Information Regulations 2004.
Let me start by saying how nice it is to see you in the Chair, Mr. Forth. The regulations deal with access to information and the proper scrutiny of the Executive, in which you have a long-standing interest.
Environmental information regulations were first introduced in 1992. They gave the public a statutory right of access to environmental information held by public authorities and certain other bodies. In response to the Aarhus convention, we are now making new environmental information regulations to clarify and enhance the 1992 regulations.
The revised regulations provide a shorter time for authorities to respond to requests. They require that authorities proactively disseminate information and progressively make more available to the public by electronic means. They make the public interest test explicit and state that there will be a presumption in favour of all disclosure. They also give the Information Commissioner enforcement powers. They do not place new burdens on public authorities.
Both the old and the new regulations include all organisations that perform public functions in relation to the environment, such as utility companies and waste contractors. That creates a comprehensive system covering all environmental information that affects people's lives. Authorities cannot evade the regulations by contracting out their environmental functions.
Why have we made the new regulations? In 1998, the UK signed the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe convention on access to information, public participation in decision making and access to justice in environmental matters, which is more commonly known as the Aarhus convention. The convention aims to strengthen the role of members of the public and environmental organisations in protecting and improving the environment for the benefit of future generations. It recognises citizens' rights to information, participation and justice in environmental matters and aims to promote greater accountability and transparency in environmental matters.
The convention is an instrument not only to protect the environment, but to promote democracy and sustainable development. It aims to allow members of the public greater access to environmental information
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held by public authorities, thereby increasing the transparency and accountability of Governments. The European Community has also signed the convention, and it has adopted several instruments to apply it across the Community. One of them is an EU directive on public access to environmental information, which the UK is required to transpose into UK law by February 2005. The new regulations will do that, as well as ensuring that the UK can ratify the convention in May 2005, and we have made publicly clear that we are committed to doing so.
The regulations are a step towards the full implementation of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 on 1 January 2005. The Act, which received Royal Assent in November 2000, is a major measure that builds on the progress made as a result of open government. It directly supports sustainable development by providing enhanced access to information held by public authorities about their responsibilities and activities. It will be used to produce a culture of greater openness so that decisions are more transparent, making public authorities more accountable for their actions.
We have ensured that the regulations work in harmony with the Freedom of Information Act so that the provisions are easier for public authorities to implement and for the public to understand. Therefore, the time scale for responding to requests—21 days in most cases—is the same. The same requirements will also apply to the advice, information and format involved in handling requests. Finally, the same Information Commissioner will oversee the regime.
We are looking at how the online revolution can improve the way in which the Government provide information and enable participation in decision making. Like the Freedom of Information Act, the new environmental information regulations encourage authorities to make information routinely available on websites, where possible, as well as requiring the proactive dissemination of information. Making information readily available online reduces the need for people formally to request it.
Most requests will be free to the applicants. We will recommend that Freedom of Information Act authorities use that approach to charging. An authority will charge for a request only if the amount of work involved exceeds certain appropriate limits, which is currently £600 for central Government and £450 for local government. The charge for other public authorities must also be reasonable. Where there is a charge, it will be no more than the cost of supplying the information.
Many authorities will notice little difference from business as usual, as they are already doing a good job supplying such information to the public on request. The regulations provide public authorities with a great opportunity to show what they do and how they do it. I am also confident that the regulations will improve policy making and the democratic process by extending access to the facts and analysis that provide
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the basis for considering proposed policy, while preserving the privacy of personal and confidential information where the public interest requires it.
Ensuring that the public have access to environmental information and to participation in decision making and justice in environmental matters is essential if we are to create transparency and to build trust in communities and between individuals and public authorities. Government, both local and national, needs to be more transparent so that the public can gain access to information that affects them, allowing them to participate in an informed way in decisions that affect their lives.
As well as building greater trust between citizens and public authorities, better access to information supports a culture of informed public engagement in civic matters. Transparency and public participation are vital if we are to achieve our aim of sustainable development in the United Kingdom. The Government are committed to reducing consumption and waste; increasing recycling and the conservation of natural resources; fostering economic growth; and improving the quality of life of all UK citizens. The priority now is how to integrate sustainable development into decision making. If we are to achieve that, it is vital for everyone to be able to access environmental information.
The UK Government are committed to improving public access to environmental information. The regulations will fulfil that commitment and enable the UK to make progress towards meeting its aims of transparency, public participation and access to justice. I therefore hope that hon. Members will join me in supporting the regulations, which are designed to achieve those objectives.
2.38 pm
Miss Anne McIntosh (Vale of York) (Con): I welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Forth. May I say what a pleasure and privilege it is to serve under your chairmanship?
I thank the Minister for his introductory remarks. I declare an interest in the subject; I studied at Aarhus university for two semesters between 1978 and 1979. I was lucky enough to receive a grant from Rentokil—that well-known pest-control organisation that was then owned by Sophus Berendsen, a Danish firm. Please do not ask me how to spell Sophus Berendsen. I spent the second part of the year with the British Council, so I have very fond memories of that university, but I cannot claim any credit for the signing of the convention there.
As the Minister said, the regulations build on the excellent regulations introduced by none other than my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) in 1992, so I am sure the Minister will agree that the original regulations had much to commend them. In the spirit of openness, however, will he explain why, if the regulations are based on a European Union directive, they do not allow documents and information relating to the European institutions—primarily the European
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Parliament, the European Council and the European Commission—to be as open and accessible as he has said local and central Government documents may be?
We have built up quite a spirit of co-operation in the past 13 months, and I may be able to assist the Minister by telling him that it appears that there is a subsequent European Union directive which does allow such accessibility. It would greatly help the Committee to know which directive it is, and when the Government plan to transpose it into national law, if they have not already done so. As you will recall, Mr. Forth, from the days when you served in the relevant capacity—I think that I was then an adviser to the Conservatives—access to European Union documents seems as much in the interests of the British citizen and taxpayer as access to central and local government documents.
I want to raise a point about a definition in the regulations, which, incidentally, have no number. I do not know whether that is characteristic of the Department; perhaps regulations are unnumbered because they are coming through so quickly and must be brought into force by 1 January. My copy certainly does not have a number. Is there no number because the regulations are being rushed through to comply with the time scale? On the definition, Paragraph 1(a) of regulation 2 defines the term ''environmental information'' as having the same meaning as in article 2(1) of the original directive, which is
''any information in written, visual, aural, electronic of any other material form''
about the matters that are then set out. Is that definition exactly the same? Have there been any amendments?
When does the Information Commissioner take up his office? I should be grateful for information—if it cannot be provided in the debate, perhaps it could be set out in a letter made available to the Library—about the cost of the office of the Information Commissioner. It strikes me that it may be another quango.
Newspaper reports, some of them dating back to September, have suggested that local authorities—one fears that this may also apply to Departments—have been shredding and burning documents that they would prefer not to make available to the public. Does the Minister have any evidence about that? Who is policing what is done with such sensitive information, which would be of interest and which should be available under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and the regulations? What penalties would be imposed if anyone at departmental or local authority level were found to have destroyed a document in that way?
The Minister referred to charging—the relevant provision is regulation 8—and said that it would be incurred only if the limits that he mentioned were exceeded. The limits were £600 for central Government and £450 for local government, but what will the charging level be? I do not see that in the framework of regulation 8, and in the spirit of openness and freedom of information, he may care to share it with the Committee.
The Minister has said that the Department is striving for a deadline period of 20 days, and I presume that that is the same for all Departments. That is well
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under half the current period, although I am not sure whether it applies under UK or EU provisions. I understand that the current period is two months, which I think are allowed under the 1992 regulations that have been mentioned. Does he think that Departments and local authorities will be able to meet that requirement, and will there be penalties if the deadline is not met?
I should have said at the outset that the Conservative party agrees enthusiastically with the principle of allowing public access to information that does not infringe our national security requirements. I hope that the Minister will take that remark in the spirit in which it is intended.
I understand that as the directive passed through the European Parliament, following a proposal from the Commission and, at the Minister's level, the Council of Ministers, the Met Office and Ordnance Survey raised serious reservations. Will he share those reservations with us and say how the Department has managed to square the concerns of those two bodies and secure their agreement?
It would be helpful if the regulations were more explicit about guidelines on calculating and imposing the charges. Will the normal expenses be considered, such as photocopying, printing, postage and administration costs? On the transfer of a request for information under regulation 10, as we know from dealing with Departments, when a request for information from constituency correspondence is transferred there is invariably a delay—on the tax credit, the Inland Revenue takes the biscuit for that—and we are extremely lucky if we receive an answer within three weeks. I am concerned that the deadline of 20 days will be difficult to meet.
In the Minister's Department alone 140 or more quangos have been established. That is one of the features of this Government. The Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Bill will see the creation of at least one more quango, the commission for architecture. It is extremely difficult for a member of the public to find out to which responsible authority—that is, to which quango or Department—they should apply under the regulations for the information that they would like.
I listened carefully and with great interest to the Minister, but he did not say very much at all about regulation 12, which sets out in detail the exceptions to the duty to disclose environmental information. It would benefit the Committee and the wider public, who I know follow our proceedings closely, to know what the practical ramifications of regulation 12 will be.
Regulation 12(10) says that
''references to a public authority shall include references to a Scottish public authority.''
As a non-practising member of the Scottish Bar, I am interested greatly by that provision, which prompts this question: which other aspects of the regulations will apply to Scottish bodies? Will separate, generally applicable regulations be laid before the House? If so,
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the time left to scrutinise them properly, as I am sure everyone on the Committee would want to do, is extremely short. It is already 9 December, and the regulations are due to take effect and give the European directive legal force on 1 January.
Regulation 13 deals with personal data, and it would be interesting to hear how it will fit in with the European data protection directive and the Data Protection Act 1998, to which it briefly refers. It would also be interesting to know about the penalties and appeals process that will apply where a quango, a local authority or a Department refuses a request to disclose information. Regulation 15, on ministerial certificates, says:
''A Minister of the Crown may certify that a refusal to disclose information . . . is because'',
and it sets out various reasons. It refers to proceedings and to the use of certificates as evidence in Scotland. Will the Minister clarify the differences between procedures in England and Scotland?
Regulation 18 deals with enforcement and appeal provisions. Perhaps I have missed it, but the time scale for an appeal is not clear on a first reading. People will presumably have 20 days to make their initial request for information, but the time scale for an appeal is unclear. It would also be helpful to know who will decide which environmental information will be freely available. The Minister referred to access to information on the web. Who will be responsible for making such information available and how much detail should there be? What type of information will have to be requested? What guidance will there be, and where will it be set out?
Can the Minister put our minds at rest and assure us that the regulations are simply an exercise in openness and making information widely accessible and that we shall not see tiers and tiers of bureaucracy? With regard to his Department and the quangos for which it is responsible, how many man hours and what additional costs will be involved in implementing the regulations in any one year or, indeed, month?
Will the Minister also give us an idea of what the Government will do to ensure that information presented to the public is not only easily accessible, but easy to understand? Will there be a requirement to offer explanations of raw environmental data, which can be extremely technical?
As I said, the Opposition enthusiastically embrace the principles behind the provisions, but it would be helpful to know what type of environmental information could be considered sensitive on national security grounds. We have had a good opportunity to consider the regulations in a little detail. Given our cautious welcome for them, I await the Minister's comments with great interest.
2.54 pm
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