Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill — Keep disclosure for MPs' expenses — rejected — 20 Apr 2007 at 12:45

The Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill was designed to exclude Parliament and all MPs' business from the power of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

In this division, the majority of MPs voted against limiting the power of this Bill so that their expenses would continue to be subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

The limitation would have worked by altering the words of "House of Commons" and "House of Lords" in Schedule 1 to read:

• House of Commons/Lords, but in relation to the House of Commons/Lords only in relation to information concerning the expenditure of any member of that House in execution of their public duties.

The sponsor of this Bill, David Maclean MP, argued that this Bill was necessary because of a growing problem of the MPs correspondence being released under Freedom of Information Laws.^[3] In the later debate he exhibited a letter sent by Martin Salter MP to a local authority on behalf of a constituent in which names had not been redacted.^[4]

The proposed limitation to this sweeping change shown up by this vote tested whether this was the real reason, and not merely an attempt to hide their expenses.

The timing of this Bill followed shortly after MPs lost an important legal battle to prevent disclosure of their expenses under the Freedom of Information Act.^[2]

Andrew Dismore MP argued that this change wasn't necessary because "Mr. Speaker has made it clear that expenses and allowances would continue to be published."^[1]

This issue was tested again in the next division Division 95

• [1] Andrew Dismore MP, House of Commons, 20 April 2007
• [2] Norman Baker MP, House of Commons, 20 April 2007
• [3] MPs back 'squalid' secrecy bill, The Sun, 18 May 2007
• [4] David Maclean MP, House of Commons, 18 May 2007

Debate in Parliament | Source |