Clause 24 - Risk of damage to the economy
Inquiries Bill [Lords]
4:45 pm
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Shadow Minister (Northern Ireland), Northern Ireland Affairs; Orkney and Shetland, Liberal Democrat)
I beg to move amendment No. 40, in clause 24, page 11, line 44, leave out from ‘in’ to end of line 2 on page 12 and insert
‘avoiding a risk of damage to the economy outweighs the public interest in the information being revealed.’.
I do not think that I need detain the Committee unnecessarily on this amendment, because having assessed in part the Minister’s comments on the previous group of amendments, I am fairly confident that he will want to accept this amendment.
We are dealing with whether the cart or the horse comes first. The provision as it currently stands requires the panel to be satisfied that the public interest in the information that is being revealed outweighs the public interest in avoiding a risk of damage to the economy. That is to say that the disclosure outweighs the restriction. In fact, we would say—the Minister says that there is a presumption in favour of disclosure—that the disclosure should be the status quo or the presumption that requires to be rebutted. It is as simple as that, and I cannot imagine for the life of me why the Minister would wish to oppose the amendment.