London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Bill

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for the way in which she introduced this amendment. She was kind enough not to challenge me on the contribution that I made in Committee where I may have given the impression that we had doubts on some aspects of the Freedom of Information Act: I indicated the difficulties with regard to the Act. The whole House knows that the Act has been in existence for only just over a year. There are teething problems and many challenges lie ahead. They do not just lie ahead: the Act has implicit in it a whole range of challenges over freedom of information. In Committee, I sought to wrestle with the challenging issue of where the lines are to be drawn, given our experience of the Act as it has operated up to now, among very disparate bodies. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, for indicating why the claims that LOCOG should be under the Freedom of Information Act should be resisted. LOCOG is very different from the Olympic Delivery Authority. We do not have the slightest hesitation that the ODA falls, as a public body, within the framework of the Act. We intend that it fulfils its duties in that respect. As the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, indicated, LOCOG is a different body. It is a private company, limited by guarantee. It will be almost entirely privately financed, with funding coming from private sector, commercial sponsorship. It also gets a sizeable sum from the International Olympic Committee. LOCOG has contractual obligations to the IOC under the host city contract, so it is very different from the Olympic Delivery Authority. It is not a public body in the same sense at all. We are not saying that LOCOG at some stage might fall within the framework of the Freedom of Information Act, but we know that it is not for this Bill to specify that. That is a consideration to be taken under the policy of the implementation of the FOI Act. For very obvious reasons, LOCOG fits into a different category altogether from those public bodies which we can identify, provided for out of public resource, which are bound to be open to questions in respect of freedom of information. I am not trying to hide behind some abstruse argument with regard to the Bill. We say only that freedom of information is not the business of this Bill. Freedom of information, the Act and how we implement it are proper concerns of this House and, of course, the other place. We all know that we have, and will have, a considerable amount of work on decisions on freedom of information issues. But it would not be appropriate for us, within the framework of this Bill when it becomes an Act, to define LOCOG, when we have to consider it in the round with a whole range of other institutions and where they fit into freedom of information. If I appear negative about freedom of information, I hope that it is not because it has been suggested that as a Government representative I am cool about the concept of freedom of information—very far from it. We are implementing the Act and making very great progress in the openness of information for our society. I am indicating that I am not prepared to consider freedom of information within the framework of this Bill. That is why I want the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.