Protection of Freedoms Bill

My Lords, these amendments merely seek to ensure that the process operates as quickly and as efficiently as possible by providing a duty on public authorities to expedite requests through the relevant processes as quickly as possible and within a certain period of time. I believe that they are entirely reasonable and are a matter of enhanced transparency and good governance. My noble friend is right when he says that they could also help to resolve some of the deeper problems that we discussed earlier. Therefore, I very much hope that the Government will support these reasonable, clear and sensible amendments which would ensure that the system worked better in favour of public accountability—which is, after all, what the FOI Act was designed to serve.