The legislation will be debated by the House of Lords, despite
fierce opposition that has seen the bill ‘talked out’ at two
parliamentary sessions.
Former Tory whip David Maclean has introduced the bil,
claiming that it was not intended to give MPs special treatment,
but to protect the confidentiality of constituency correspondence.
Opponents of the bill said that the confidentiality of constituency
correspondence was protected under existing laws and was never
under threat from FOI laws.
Maclean himself has accepted that correspondence is already
protected. He said last month: “theoretically there are provisions
in the current Act which may protect that correspondence, but we
are not the final arbiter on that. That decision may be made by
someone else who decides that it is safe to release our
correspondence”.
On two previous attempts to have the bill passed to the House of
Lords opponents had ‘talked out’ the proposal, talking for the full
five hours allocated to private members’ bills so that the
legislation could never be voted on.
Those tactics did not work on this reading, though, and a vote
on the bill gathered 96 votes in favour of it and 25 against.
Opponents fear that the move is intended to make it harder for the
public to scrutinise MPs’ expenses, a claim refuted by Maclean.
They also say that it will do little to bolster public confidence
in Parliament if MPs exempt themselves from the scrutiny to which
all other public bodies must submit.
“It is an effrontery for the House of Commons to make the deeply
hypocritical move of exempting itself from a law that applies to
every other public body in the country,” said Liberal Democrat MP
Norman Baker, who opposed the move.
"It is also deeply undemocratic that MPs on both the Government
and Conservative benches have clearly collaborated to ensure that
those with a contrary view, fighting for open government, were
silenced after barely any debate on amendments to the bill,” said
Baker.
Freedom of Information legislation allows the public to request
details about the running of the organisation from any public body.
If passed, the legislation will exempt both the House of Commons
and the House of Lords from the requirement to provide that
information.
