UK Parliament / Open data

Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill

My Lords, I support what my noble friend just said. It seems rather silly to have done what is required in order to be transparent without taking the necessary steps to make it easy for other people to access that transparency. For example, ministerial diaries will be done on a daily basis, I assume, or possibly on a weekly basis, in advance, I hope, so the basic structure is there almost immediately. I cannot see why the diary cannot immediately be put out. Obviously, the diary sometimes has to be corrected, because even ministerial diaries sometimes do not

actually transpire as intended, but an immediate correction could be made to make sure that it is accurate. I cannot see why it could not be done immediately, on a daily basis. Certainly, weekly would seem perfectly possible. If not, having made what one might regard as an important step towards transparency, the Government are losing the full benefit of that transparency by the difficulty that people have in accessing it.

About this proceeding contribution

Reference

749 c165 

Session

2013-14

Chamber / Committee

House of Lords chamber
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