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PAUL WILENIUS: Seeing clearly into the
heart of government, is difficult. To many people it's a mystery The public
has no right to know what goes on or the government spends �350 billion
a year, and employs nearly 5 million people. Now many fear Labour is failing
to deliver a radical Freedom of Information Bill, despite the early promises
to reveal government secrets .
MARK FISHER MP: I'm disappointed that the
whole tone of this bill is not on the side of the applicant, the individual,
the questioner, but is on the side of the minister, the Government, the
institution.
LORD RICHARD: It is quite extraordinary
actually , the more one goes round the world , even at my advancing age,
the more I marvel at the fact that Britain is a country that believes
basically deeply believes that government ought to be secret.
WILENIUS: Tony Blair promised four
years ago to end the culture of secrecy which surrounds Whitehall when
he got into power, .but many in his party feel the Freedom of Information
Bill is too weak .Now many Labour MPs are planning to vote against crucial
parts of the legislation when it's debated in the Commons this week.
TONY WRIGHT MP: People don't want to be rebellious.
People don't want to vote against their own government, I certainly don't
want to do it, but this is an issue which does cross those party lines.
It's about how we defend and advance the rights of citizens.
WILENIUS: And the ordinary citizen
was at the front of the minds of this all-party group of senior MPs when
they met on Thursday. They warned Ministers that there'll have to be significant
changes , to make the bill acceptable Ministers are so worried about their
opposition, they'll meet the MPs tomorrow to try and head off a revolt.
But if there are no significant concessions, some are forecasting a sizeable
rebellion.
FISHER: I would be surprised if
between 40 and 60 back-bench Labour MPs were not very unhappy on this issue,
and perhaps more significant from the Government and indeed the House of
Lords' point of view, is who those MPs are. They're not going to be the
regular rebels, the awkward squad, they will include, I suspect, some very
senior chairmen and chairwomen of select committees.
WRIGHT: This is serious pressure
on government, its not the normal party, party line stuff. We think we
we've got the arguments right, we think we think we've got the government
on the ropes on this.
WILENIUS: The political pressure
has forced some concessions from Ministers. But campaigners feel the bill
still allows far too much secrecy. They've targeted three major defects.
Under the bill there are blanket exemptions on the release of information
gathered during investigations by any public authority, which may lead
to criminal or civil proceedings. It means important information on health
and safety, and potential risks to the public could be kept secret, even
if it does not prejudice a court case, or even after the court case is
over.
MIKE O'BRIEN MP: There will be a substantial
ability to know information and there will be a requirement that any information,
in which there's a public interest in disclosure is disclosed. But if there's
also a public interest in making sure that we catch criminals and that
we don't have people, getting away with crimes that they shouldn't, then
I don't think we should put a right to know before making sure the criminals
are put behind bars if that's where they need to be.
WILENIUS: But many investigations
don't produce criminal convictions. Campaigners fear this exemption is
so wide that even information on nuclear safety problems, like those seen
recently at Sellafield could be kept secret. Now they want this veil of
secrecy lifted so the public can demand information from BNFL, especially
when there's a major incident.
FISHER: Information that arises
on a big investigation like into the Sellafield problem, that should not
have a blanket exemption and be removed from the public scrutiny, there
ought to be a public interest test there, and other countries manage that,
we should have that too.
MAURICE FRANKEL: I think that blanket exemptions
are almost unbelievable for a Freedom of Information Act. They are not
just the police but to bring in the health and safety executive, trading
standards officers, environmental health officers, with all the important
day to day things that they deal with about the hazards that people face
in their ordinary lives and in their working lives, to put that under a
blanket of secrecy is not just a mistake I think it is a stunning missing
of the point of what freedom of information is about and what people expect
from it
WILENIUS The bill will establish
an Information Commissioner , with powers to compel public authorities
to disclose information, where there's an over-riding public interest.
But Ministers will still be able to veto the Commissioner's ruling and
keep information secret.
O'BRIEN: These proposals, which
we've now brought forward, are quite radical. What they do is they provide
checks and balances all the way down the process. They don't give the Information
Commissioner dictatorial powers, there's some democratic oversight of her
powers, and I think that's right.
FISHER: I think it is wrong that
the powers of the commissioner are not stronger. We're going to have a
very good commissioner in Elizabeth France, but the Government and the
bill don't trust her to have the final say.
WILENIUS: Under the bill there's
no legal obligation to release the factual information, on which government
policies are based. This means Ministers will be able to withhold research,
statistics and scientific data which they've used as background information,
from the public gaze.
O'BRIEN: Most information that,
er, Ministers deal with is public in any event. Most of the statistics,
the background information is all in the public arena today. Where sometimes
it isn't, the Minister will have to show, prove that there is an overriding
public interest in not disclosing it.
WILENIUS: But it's issues like
the BSE crisis which really worry campaigners. Even though it began in
1979, the full scale of mad cow disease did not emerge until the 1990s.
Many MPs feel that if the facts given to Ministers over that period had
been made available to the public, the crisis may not have been so serious.
But Ministers were able to keep them locked away.
WRIGHT: The whole BSE example has
really changed public thinking on this altogether. They want to know how
they could have been duped, how they could have been mislead for so long.
Why couldn't we have seen the information that was coming into the system
into the Department of Agriculture into Ministers, why didn't we see what
was going on.
FRANKEL: There's really no excuse
for treating that kind of material as sensitive to start with. I mean
if you're serious about freedom of information, the facts on which policy
is based is the first thing that you give to the people.
WILENIUS: If there are no more
concessions there will be a rebellion in the Commons over the key parts
of the bill, but the government will still be able to push it through.
However, when it gets to the Lords the bill is likely to be radically
changed, unless the government backs down further.
LORD ARCHER: If it's clear that a substantial
number in the House of Commons have serious doubts about the Bill, I think
that would encourage the Lords to say well, we ought to pursue the doubts
which we ourselves have. If there is no concession at all from the position
we are in now, then I'm pretty sure there will be a pitched battle in the
Lords.
WILENIUS: So even if the bill can
survive a rough ride in the Commons, it's set to be dramatically altered
when it eventually gets sent up to the Lords. Ministers could face a difficult
constitutional battle.
LORD RICHARD: The way in which the politics
will play in, certainly in the Lords, and then it will have to go back
to the Commons, come back to the Lords, a little bit of ping-pong, getting
towards the end of the session, they'll be faced with a choice of either
losing a big chunk of the bill or making concessions. I think at the end
of the day, they'll concede a bit.
WILENIUS: Inside Whitehall both
Ministers and officials claim the bill is radical, and hope that the rebels
will back off, when the government's amendments are explained to them.
But they'll have their work cut out, as many rebels are just not open
to persuasion.
O'BRIEN: It's about balancing various
rights. Balancing a right of privacy with a right to freedom of information.
A right to ensure that we have government with, which is efficient, against
a right to ensure that in a democracy the people know what the government
is doing.
WRIGHT: We are grudgingly making
the government move on this, I mean its like drawing teeth, its very very
difficult. But we are making some progress. But we haven't got to the
end of the road yet. I mean the government's got to negotiate the House
of Commons now, its got to negotiate the House of the Lords, then probably
the House of Commons again. I mean, we, you know, we're not at the end
of this story.
LORD ARCHER: A lot of us would like to
see the Bill on the statute book. That's the first thing I'd want to say
to ministers. It will be a pity if it falls because they don't listen.
WILENIUS: There were high hopes
the government would live up to its manifesto promise, and end the culture
of secrecy which has always hidden its work. But there seems little chance
of Ministers doing that voluntarily, now they are themselves in high office.
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