Protection of Freedoms Bill

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Wills, for explaining his amendments so clearly. I will not attempt to summarise them and take up the Committee’s time unnecessarily. I agree with the sentiment behind the noble Lord’s amendments in relation to the timeliness of public interest deliberations and internal reviews, which tally with the Information Commissioner’s best practice guidance. The Government are firmly in favour of public authorities answering requests and internal reviews as quickly as possible. It is not acceptable that they should drag their heels in responding, and any extension to the time limit for responding to FOI requests should be claimed only where absolutely necessary. The introduction of new statutory deadlines is certainly one potential way of strengthening the Freedom of Information Act, providing that it does not lead to hasty decisions that are not fully informed. Having an absolute limit of 40 days, even in the most complex cases, must raise some concerns about the potential for such an effect. Accordingly, careful consideration of the impact of such changes would be necessary before their introduction, and for that reason I cannot accept these amendments today. However, as I have said when we discussed other amendments, this might form part of the Justice Select Committee’s post-legislative review. The noble Lord referred to his experiences as Freedom of Information Minister. I would never claim to have held any such senior position anywhere. However, I spent nine years working in the corporate end of the BBC and saw the internal conflicts that sometimes arose between the editorial part of the organisation using the FOI Act to obtain information and its corporate end having to be subject to the same Act. I am aware of the very careful deliberations that are necessary when an information request comes in and the complexities involved in that. It is sometimes necessary to take a bit of time to get to the point where the right decision can be made on releasing information. That said, in that public authority it was my experience that as the organisation got used to the FOI Act, it got quicker at dealing with the requests, the appeals, the internal reviews and so on. In relation to the noble Lord’s Amendment 151M, I agree with the underlying sentiment regarding the transparency of freedom of information activity. Public authorities should be accountable for their performance in respect of freedom of information requests and actions. I would strongly encourage the publication of statistics similar to those which central government already makes available, and they should do so as part of their publication schemes. However, I am not convinced of the need to introduce a statutory requirement to publish such statistics, whether through a publication scheme or not. To do so would seem disproportionate given that some public authorities are extremely small—for instance, a single-doctor GP practice or a parish council—and may see little if any freedom of information activity. I am not aware of any great demand for the publication of such data by such small bodies. I am also conscious of the need to impose only the most essential burdens on the public sector in the current financial climate. However, as I say, I recognise that the transparency of freedom of information performance across the public sector is also something which Parliament may wish to look at in the round when the post-legislative scrutiny is carried out. In view of my comments, I hope that the noble Lord feels able to withdraw his amendment today.