Protection of Freedoms Bill

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his very careful reply, the care he has taken over the various points made and his willingness to have further discussions. I have no doubt that that offer will be taken up. However, I have two or three points. First, I have no doubt that the commitment to freedom of information is as strong among those who proposed these amendments as it is with the Government. In fact, one of my prouder moments, many years ago, was when I was given an award by the society that campaigned for what became the Freedom of Information Act because of the way I conducted a particular government inquiry. I am committed to the importance for public services and within the public sector of freedom of information. Secondly, I will read with care what the Minister said about licences. One question that I will want to have answered—it may well be in Hansard—is about what degree of input a researcher, a research institute or a university will have into the drawing up of the licence that is applied to a particular publication. I am not yet clear whether Rosalind Franklin’s photographs would have fallen under the definition of a data set. If they had fallen under that definition, I do not think the cause of science or human life would have been advanced by having them accessible to whoever wanted to use the Freedom of Information Act to drag them up at that stage. My third point is on the costs of responding. I chaired a group that advised a research project in Scotland called Generation Scotland. I shall not go into the details, but it was shot through with personal information. I can reassure the Minister that the cost of redacting any of that would be immense. Indeed, such is the sensitivity at a personal level of some of the information that the body responsible for managing it allows no one individual access to the whole data set. It is a double-lock situation, and that is absolutely right. That is not against the public interest; it is in the public interest and that of the 15,000 families in Scotland that have contributed very sensitive information for that research. I welcome the comments and look forward to more detail on the timing of the commencement of Clause 102. In closing, I simply re-emphasise the point made by my noble friend Lord Oxburgh. We are talking about information for the public. In this case, the public is the entire world. The public is every competitor we have in the research business and in the commercial business that will spin out from it. That is still the real concern. With the intention of discussing this with my noble friend Lady O’Neill, at this stage, I withdraw the amendment. Amendment 55A withdrawn. Amendments 56 and 56ZA not moved. Amendment 56A Moved by