Freedom of Information Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 6:30 pm on 19 October 2000.

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Photo of Lord Bassam of Brighton Lord Bassam of Brighton Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office 6:30, 19 October 2000

The Bill as it stands sensibly makes provision for information which a public authority intends to publish to be exempt from the duty to disclose under Clause 1(1). Unfortunately, the amendment limiting the exemption at Clause 20 would include information relating to projects or reports which it would be inappropriate to publish until after a certain time.

I should like to assist Members of the Committee by providing some examples. First, the Treasury holds information about the performance of different sectors of the economy and information about whether it intends to raise or lower taxes--important information. Such information has an effect on the United Kingdom economy and its release needs to be carefully managed. Secondly, there exist research projects, the findings of which it would be unreasonable, impractical and inappropriate to publish before the project has been completed. Some research projects could easily run for longer than three months, but under this exemption they would have to supply information on request before the project was completed, with the possible effect of nullifying the results of that project.

Clause 20 allows for those different examples and, combined with the proposed arrangements for the adoption of a publication scheme and the enforcement powers of the information commissioner, provides an effective exemption.

The clause as drafted provides an exemption from the duty to provide information where there is a present intention to publish and it is reasonable to withhold the information until publication. The applicant should be told of that intention and would be expected to await formal publication. The requirement of reasonableness, which is a fair test, effectively prevents this exemption being used simply as a device to avoid publishing something which might cause embarrassment to Ministers. In order for this requirement to be satisfied, there must be a clear commitment on the part of the authority to publish the information at some defined point in the future, as well as, by definition, a real reason for the withholding of the information.