Freedom of Information (Designation as Public Authorities) Order 2011

My Lords, first, I apologise for being slightly late. I was listening to the debate on the Floor of the House and noticed that this subject had come up. I thought that I would come up and listen to the Minister. I can well understand that we are talking about the chief police officers of England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Of course, we have a devolved Parliament for Scotland, and there are several police forces in Scotland. Will the Minister consult the Scottish Parliament to see that freedom of information will be available in this respect for police authorities north of the border? The Minister has said that he, on behalf of his party, welcomes freedom of information. It did not stop those who were in an executive position complaining about freedom of information after it was pushed through Parliament. Many officials and Cabinet Ministers sleepwalked through that particular incident. I make no complaint about the legislation; I simply ask the Minister a question. Many journalists use freedom of information so that they can get what is best described as an angle for their particular story. When they ask the question and there follows a period of, let us say, 27 days—although I may be contradicted on that—I have known it to be the case with matters of the House that they have complained bitterly that the freedom of information was given to them and to the general public. They have complained bitterly that it spoiled their story that everybody else should get the information. Freedom of information is about everybody getting that information. They are on record as complaining; they are using it as a device to get a scoop, or whatever they call it. I feel strongly that once the information is issued to the applicant for that freedom of information, it should be put in the public domain immediately afterwards. In other words, if the information is given to the applicant at 2 o’clock on a given day, by one minute past two everyone should be able to get that information. I know that some people say that the identity of an applicant should not matter and that you should not know who they are. However, it is a bit rich if an application is made by someone sitting in garret in Toronto, asking for information, which takes a considerable amount of public funding. We should at least know whether a taxpayer of this country is making that application. Can the Minister mention that? It is not fair that someone who has nothing else to do with their time in another country can make an application and no one has to say where they come from. That is very important. I understand that in the Republic of Ireland, where an applicant seeks information from every local authority in that country and submits an identical question to each of them, the legislation of the Republic says, ““Wait a minute. Let’s hold it there. This means that an official is working on it in every local authority””. Time is time. If an official is drawing this information together, it can cost a substantial amount. I hope that we look out for such situations when someone is seeking information just for the sake of gathering it and having officials in an authority running around. In the same way, if a ministerial Question is submitted by a Member of this House or the other place and an identical Question is tabled by another noble Lord or elected Member, the Minister would say, ““I refer to the reply I have given to the noble Lord on such and such a date””. That means that there is no duplication. I hope that due concern is given to the fact that we should not have duplication.