Whitsun Adjournment

I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman agrees. To my amazement, Mr. Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, immediately declared that he was unaware of the deliberate destruction of files by civil servants and that Departments were keen to co-operate with him. He said that he would give them all a clean bill of health but that, if I had any evidence that they had been destroying files to avoid the terms of the Act, I should give it to him. Excuse me, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I thought that that was his job. I believed that I had established enough prima facie evidence. When an Act is coming into force that requires many files to be opened and there is a pattern that shows files being destroyed steadily and then a sudden massive increase in that destruction, surely that is enough to trigger an investigation. However, he was having none of it. By contrast, determining whether a bunch of Members of Parliament genuinely live in the houses for which they claim expenses shot to the top of the Information Commissioner's agenda. Only today, he is at the top of the news agenda—it is the same man; he is doing well. I wonder what his home address is—perhaps I will find out. He is initiating an investigation into how the Tory party gave names, voting intentions and so on to some media. Why does he need to investigate that? We know how it happened—a massive mistake was made. All the people who received the information assured everybody that they have destroyed it. Of course, those in the Conservative party who are responsible deserve a severe reprimand for making a stupid mistake. However, why does the Information Commissioner leap on that and investigate it when there is no mystery? When something happened that genuinely mattered, he flunked the challenge. I do not hesitate to say that I have no confidence in the man as an individual and no professional confidence in him. The sooner he is brought before the House, so that he can be subject to some oversight and answer some questions, the better. I want to consider the post that comes through hon. Members' doors—the matter was raised earlier in an intervention. We go to great expense to screen our in-coming mail in the House. What is the point of doing that if our addresses are published en masse? What terrorist or nuisance with half a brain would send letters to hon. Members at the House when they could send them to their home addresses? What shall we do? Are we to institute screening procedures at everyone's home? Will we save money and do away with the screening procedures here because there is no reason to keep them other than to protect the building, because they sure as heck are not going protect Members of Parliament once the madness that we are considering occurs? If my address were published—I do not believe that that will happen for the reasons that I outlined—I would arrange for all my mail, personal, abusive and professional, to be rerouted to the House of Commons to be screened before it returned to my home address. Is the House prepared to take that on and the expense that it would entail?