Pensions Bill

moved Amendment No. 130: 130: After Clause 21, insert the following new Clause— ““Freedom of Information (1) The Freedom of Information Act 2000 (c. 36) is amended as follows. (2) In section 35 (formulation of government policy etc.) after subsection (2) insert— ““(2A) Information held by or provided by the Personal Accounts Delivery Authority is not to be regarded— (a) for the purposes of subsection (1)(a), as relating to the formulation or development of government policy, or (b) for the purposes of subsection (1)(b), as relating to Ministerial communications.”” (3) In section 36 (prejudice to effective conduct of public affairs) after subsection (2) insert— ““(2A) Information held by or provided by the Personal Accounts Delivery Authority is not to be regarded— (a) for the purposes of subsection (2)(a), as relating to the maintenance of the convention of the collective responsibility of Ministers of the Crown, (b) for the purposes of subsection (2)(b), as relating to the free and frank provision of advice, or the free and frank exchange of views for the purposes of deliberation, or (c) for the purposes of subsection (2)(c), as relating to the effective conduct of public affairs.”””” The noble Baroness said: We are sticking with the topic of transparency. The amendment inserts a new clause after Clause 21 which amends the Freedom of Information Act, which will generally be applied to the delivery authority by virtue of Schedule 6. It denies the delivery authority the protection from disclosure afforded by Sections 35 and 36 of that Act. We have no problem with the principle behind Sections 35 and 36, which have been designed to protect the advice that civil servants give to their Ministers. In practice, we think that these sections have been over-relied on to deny the release of information, but that the Information Commissioner has been doing splendid work when complaints are made. We seek through the amendment to apply the spirit of the Freedom of Information Act to the activities of the delivery authority, so that it is never tempted to deny disclosure because its advice is for Ministers—or, indeed, for the effective conduct of public affairs. The delivery authority is set up primarily to provide advice on the new personal accounts system, and it is crucial that all those who are affected by that advice, and their representatives, get access to it quickly and efficiently. I am talking not only about the business organisations that are affected and which I normally talk about, but about trade unions and others who represent consumers, such as Which?. The delivery authority is in essence a short-life body, and those who want access to information cannot afford the luxury of an appeals process to the Information Commissioner because it would take a long time and could quite frankly outlive the delivery authority. That authority should be open and transparent. I hope that it will always give information about what it does and that it will never be necessary for an information seeker to seek to use the Act to prise out information, as that would be a failure on the part of the authority. The amendment would not deprive the authority of any of the other exemptions from disclosure—an example is commercial confidentiality, which may well arise if the authority is starting to prepare a tender for systems or other advice—but it would rule out a broad exemption for its main task, which is advice to Ministers. In another place, the Minister suggested that the amendment would require the authority to handover its IT passwords, or a person applying for an interview to ask the questions in advance. These ideas are risible, given that our amendment deals only with policy advice and the conduct of public affairs, and I hope that the Minister today will give more sensible reasons for rejecting it—that is, if the Government have not yet seen the light on transparency and are still determined to resist the amendment. I beg to move.