| Draft Freedom of Information (Removal and Relaxation of Statutory Prohibitions on Disclosure of Information) Order 2004
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Mr. Leslie: I would not regard a nil return to a letter as necessarily a bad thing. If one asks Ministerial colleagues if they have a particular objection to a proposal, one does not necessarily wish them to have one. If they were content with the changes, all well and good. I have no reason to believe that my colleagues would be anything less than rigorous with the public bodies under their remit. We have had informal discussions with public bodies, and I have full Column Number: 15 confidence in my officials, who have worked day and night through many long weeks, liaising with public bodies and thinking about who might be affected by compliance issues.I hope that some of my explanations are reasonable and that the hon. Member for Huntingdon can see that the time for compliance regulations are fair. To fail to go ahead with them now—to object and vote down the regulations—would mean that schools would have no choice but to reconstitute themselves during summer holidays in order to answer FOI requests. The rules must be clearer so that schools understand that and do not need to second-guess what the Act says about what is reasonable or not. We need to help schools, as we always try to. Mr. Djanogly: Will the Minister give way? Mr. Leslie: I hope that I have persuaded the hon. Gentleman to say that he will back the proposals. Mr. Djanogly: Will the provisions that apply to schools also apply to military schools and borstals? Mr. Leslie: That is a good question. I do not think that they would; rather, I think that they apply to schools as normally defined in education enactments elsewhere, but I shall enlighten the hon. Gentleman in correspondence if I am wrong. However, inspiration suggests that perhaps military schools would be included—I just have that feeling. My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, North-East asked why the time for the compliance order is needed at all if section 10(3) already mentions reasonable time. Those provisions are needed partly to clarify to public bodies what the norms will be for their handling of such requests. It would be unfair, for example, to leave schools or military establishments to interpret whether or not something was reasonable. The meaning of reasonableness must be included in the provisions, as an aid to those public bodies. My hon. Friend also asked why the code of practice originally said 20 working days, but the revised version does not. It is certainly true that the revised version is different. Because the Act is explicit in regard to 20 days, there is no point in including that in the revised code of practice. Also, the new code of practice better reflects the vires allowed in relation to the code-making regulations under section 45. That is a better reflection of what section 45 allows that code to do. I suspect that the original code was probably far more voluminous than it needed to be, but, with particular reference to section 45, the revisions have honed the code of practice down, so that the code is what it should be according to the letter of the law. To clarify my earlier remark about military schools, on reflection it appears that they apparently may not be covered by the changes, although schools for children of service personnel would be regarded as schools in that sense. I hope that that helps. Column Number: 16 Brian White: One of the issues that has emerged is that the second edition of the code of practice was not subject to consultation outside Government Departments. That has given rise to some of the fears that have been expressed. Will my hon. Friend undertake to widen the consultation as we move forward, so that such unnecessary fears will not persist? That way, people will be reassured that the Government's objective is for most requests to be made within the 20 days and that his assurances are still valid. Mr. Leslie: I can reiterate those assurances that most requests should be given within the 20 working days, which is the norm. We are talking about a small section of local authorities in certain circumstances. Sometimes we might not be able to see the wood for the trees in these Committees, when we focus on one or two public authorities. By and large, the proposals are a significant and radical improvement in the way access to public bodies is thrown open, and that is to be welcomed. I commend my hon. Friend's involvement in the Select Committee process and, historically, in ensuring that the change in the law went on to the statute book. Of course, as well as codes of practice, there is other guidance around for public authorities in different circumstances—quite voluminous guidance. I take my hon. Friend's point about consultation; we always have to be careful with the consultation burden. If, from time to time, we do not consult, we are criticised for not asking public bodies' views. On the other hand, if we throw consultation documents at schools, head teachers and so forth, we are accused of being over-burdensome and bureaucratic. We have to strike the right balance. I accept that my hon. Friend is asking for more opportunities in which comments can be made by those who are particularly interested in doing so. I shall see what I can do to pass on that preference for an ethos in this FOI era to my officials dealing with this issue. I will address the points raised by the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine. First, on the order on repeals and relaxation of prohibitions of disclosure, he asked what sort of work was in the pipeline, what the pipeline was, how long it was and how deep it went, and asked how much work was ongoing. I am not an expert on the history of legislation, but I think that many prohibitions were put in decades ago, almost on a whim, and we are uncovering them as we come across them. For example, when we considered the change to the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974—one of the eight changes in the order—various consequential references to other pieces of legislation were revealed. We are subsequently changing them via the order. We think that there could be anything between 250 and 400 other changes, and we will try to deal with them as we go along. There can be nothing worse than approaching a Committee with changes and getting them wrong; I want to make sure that we get them right first. That is why the order is fairly limited. However, it is a good first step forward.
Column Number: 17 The hon. Gentleman asked about the Audit Commission change and, in particular, why we were moving from using the imprisonment sanction to using a fine as the means of disposal of persons who breach the order or regulations. We simply felt that that was more proportionate to the offence. A fine can be a serious sanction for someone who is breaking a rule. In the circumstances, we felt that imprisonment was too heavy-handed, and that was why we decided to make that change.I have addressed some of the hon. Gentleman's points on the time for compliance regulations and the draft code of practice. If he has any other questions, I would be happy to address them. Sir Robert Smith: I am concerned, because the regulations are about changing deadlines. In November 2002, the original draft guidance said:
Mr. Leslie: No, I disagree with the hon. Gentleman. We are making regulations under section 10 of the 2000 Act, but under subsections (4) and (5), which relate to cases that can go up to that 60th day or are up to the discretion of the Information Commissioner, we are not changing the presumption of 20 working days. Nor are we removing the ''reasonable time to consider'' provision in subsection (3). Those are still there as the bedrock of the Act. We are simply doing what the Act allows us to do, namely making regulations on specific cases to help to give clarity to the public bodies mentioned. I hope that I have managed to answer most of the questions asked. I believe that the order and the regulations are good. The order on the removal and relaxation of statutory prohibition is a small but Column Number: 18 positive step towards opening previously closed doors, and there will be more to come as we discover further detailed legislation that needs to be changed through the reviews that we are undertaking. The regulations on time for compliance are a pretty nuanced response to obvious practical realities. The vast majority of freedom of information requests will, of course, be unaffected by the regulations and they will have to be answered within 20 working days.Question put and agreed to. Resolved,
Motion made, and Question proposed,
Question put:— The Committee divided: Ayes 9, Noes 3.
Division No. 1]
AYES
NOES
Resolved,
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| Prepared 9 December 2004 | |
