Protection of Freedoms Bill

My Lords, I want first to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Soley, on his staying power this afternoon. Beyond myself and my noble friend he is one of the few Members who has been with us throughout the proceedings and it has been very nice to see him here. On his amendment, I recognise the difficulties that can be encountered when attempting to establish land ownership and also recognise the noble Lord’s intentions in seeking to address this point. The way in which he has described the problems is very clear and compelling. However, this amendment would go well beyond the intentions of the Freedom of Information Act. It is not intended to require public authorities to carry out detailed, time-consuming and potentially disproportionately expensive research for information they do not hold. However, where a request for information made under Section 16 of the Freedom of Information Act requires a public authority to provide a reasonable degree of advice and assistance to applicants this would, where information is not held, include advice about how they might obtain answers to their questions from other sources themselves. In terms of process, this strikes the right sort of balance between the need to use increasingly limited resources sensibly and assisting the public where possible. However, as the noble Lord has identified, the problem he has expressed today is one that goes way beyond this and is currently—it sounds simply from the way he has described it—almost impossible to solve through any route available to anybody at this time. I was interested in his suggestion of pursuing this problem through say a Select Committee route and exploring it because it sounds as if it is a significant issue in itself that requires proper consideration in isolation and separate from this legislation. In respect of the Land Registry, the proposal in his amendment to require an authority to go further than provide the information it has via the FOI Act which receives a report would not just catch the Land Registry, but any other body with an interest in land ownership. I am not sure that was the noble Lord’s intention. I feel that he has raised an important issue. It is certainly useful for us to be aware of it and certainly in the presence of officials from the Ministry of Justice who are considering FOI. I think it goes wider than that and I would be more inclined to support the noble Lord in his effort to pursue this through a Select Committee than to do it through this Bill. On that basis, I invite him to withdraw his amendment.