Freedom of Information

I would like to begin by thanking the Leader of the House and all of her staff for the extremely positive way in which they have reacted to the concerns, initially expressed by me and then by hundreds of other right hon. and hon. Members, about the situation we were in danger of getting into. I say with the greatest sincerity that I only hope that the stance that she took did not contribute to the fact that her home has been invaded twice—by people who no doubt feel in the depths of their being that the cause they propose was justification for their actions. Nevertheless, such things are precisely what should not be allowed to happen. She has excelled in her office in the work that she has done and in the way in which she has spoken out in defence of Members' rights and interests on this matter. I would like to thank the 98 Members of my party, the 111 Members of the Labour party and the 31 Members of the Liberal Democrat party who supported early-day motion 1620. I would also like to thank the several Ministers who told me that they could not sign the EDM because of the posts that they held, but who nevertheless wrote to Mr. Speaker explaining why they supported the principle of the motion. I know that we are waiting for an important debate on intelligence and security, so I shall not detain the House for long. This, however, is a debate on a related subject. It is a debate about security, but on an issue where not very much intelligence has been shown by a certain number of people from whom we thought we could have expected it. I exclude, however, the Information Commissioner from that criticism. I say that because I had laboured under the mistaken impression that he wanted our individual addresses to be disclosed, but as he later pointed out to me, he had not ordered that. After an appeal, that requirement was added by the information appeal tribunal and upheld by the High Court in a subsequent hearing. The guilty men, as it were, were those two latter bodies. It was not the Information Commissioner. In fact, he proceeded to enter the lion's den and, at short notice, 50 to 60 hon. Members of all parties came to meet him and his team. I think that even he was quite shaken by the stories that they told him about their experiences when their constituency addresses had been exposed. Indeed, some honourable Ladies were in tears at that meeting and the Information Commissioner and his team were shaken by what they heard.