Local Audit (Public Access to Documents) Bill — Clause 1 — Right for All Registered Voters to Inspect Accounting Records of Certain Public Bodies — 24 Mar 2017 at 12:30

Mark Field MP, Cities of London and Westminster voted against giving anyone registered to vote in local elections in the UK the right to inspect the accounting records of certain public bodies, instead restricting this right to journalists and persons interested.

The majority of MPs voted against giving anyone registered to vote in local elections in the UK the right to inspect the accounting records of certain public bodies, instead restricting this right to journalists and persons interested.

The amendment rejected in this vote was:

  • amendment 2, page 1, line 5, leave out from “after” to the end of the subsection and insert—
  • any members of the public who are registered to vote in local elections in the United Kingdom”.

The rejected amendment was accompanied by the following explanatory note:

The rejected amendment would have impacted clause 1 of the Bill[2] titled: Inspection of accounting records by journalists and citizen journalists

which stated:

  • (1) Section 26 of the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014 (inspection of documents etc) is amended as follows.
  • (2) In subsection (1) (persons who can inspect accounting records and related documents) after “persons interested” insert “or any journalist”.
  • (3) After that subsection insert—
  • “(1A) In subsection (1) “journalist” means any person who produces for publication journalistic material (whether paid to do so or otherwise).”

The position prior to the Bill was that only "persons interested" had rights to inspect accounting records and supporting documents, the Bill sought to extend this to also cover "any journalist"; the rejected amendment would have extended inspection rights to any members of the public who are registered to vote in local elections in the United Kingdom.

The inspection rights apply to those bodies listed in Schedule 2 of the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014 which include local councils, National Park Authorities, Police and Crime Commissioners and certain other public bodies.

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Debate in Parliament |

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Party Summary

Votes by party, red entries are votes against the majority for that party.

What is Tell? '+1 tell' means that in addition one member of that party was a teller for that division lobby.

What are Boths? An MP can vote both aye and no in the same division. The boths page explains this.

What is Turnout? This is measured against the total membership of the party at the time of the vote.

PartyMajority (No)Minority (Aye)BothTurnout
Con41 (+2 tell) 3 (+2 tell)014.5%
Lab0 1205.2%
LDem0 000.0%
Total:41 15010.5%

Rebel Voters - sorted by party

MPs for which their vote in this division differed from the majority vote of their party. You can see all votes in this division, or every eligible MP who could have voted in this division

Sort by: Name | Constituency | Party | Vote

NameConstituencyPartyVote
Christopher ChopeChristchurchCon (front bench)aye
Philip DaviesShipleyCon (front bench)tellaye
Philip HolloboneKetteringCon (front bench)aye
Greg KnightEast YorkshireConaye
David NuttallBury NorthCon (front bench)tellaye

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