Houses of Parliament: Freedom of Information

House of Lords written question – answered at on 29 August 2013.

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To ask Her Majesty’s Government what percentage of freedom of information requests made by MPs and members of the House of Lords have been (1) responded to within the statutory deadline, and (2) refused, by each Department of State in each of the last five years.

Photo of Lord Popat Lord Popat Lord in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)

Freedom of Information (FOI) requests submitted by MPs and members of the House of Lords to each Department of State cannot he distinguished centrally from those submitted by other individuals. Details of the requestor are not collated centrally.

The Ministry of Justice does, however, record internally whether a requestor is a Member of Parliament. This is drawn from an internal case management system introduced in 2009. This information can be found in Table 1:

Table I: Outcomes and Timeliness of FOI Requests submitted by MPs to the Ministry of Justice
2009 2010 2011 2012
Percentage of requests answered within the statutory deadline 76% 87% 87% 81%
Percentage of requests refused under the cost limit 24% 36% 30% 26%
Percentage of responses exempt from fill disclosure 0% 43% 37% 15%
Number of requests received 17 47 63 27

In the Ministry of Justice, a request is only refused when the cost limit is exceeded, or when the request is repeated or considered vexatious in nature. However, the only refused requests from MPs were under the cost limit. Where a full response is withheld (rather than refused), this is because the information concerned is exempt from disclosure under the Act.

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