ACCESS TO MEETINGS AND DOCUMENTS OF CERTAIN AUTHORITIES, COMMITTEES AND SUB-COMMITTEES (Hansard, 5 July 1985)

§ Mr. Robin Squire (Hornchurch)
I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Ernest Armstrong)
With this it will be convenient to take Lords amendments Nos. 3, 7, and 9.

§ Mr. Squire
This is the final stage of a Bill which I am entitled to describe as major. It is major in size, in that it was six pages on Second Reading and is now 36 pages. That is a tribute in itself to the clarifying powers of both Chambers. It is major in effect because it will affect every local authority in England, Wales and Scotland. I pay my respects to and thank my noble Friend Baroness Carnegy of Lour, who gave sterling assistance in another place and enabled the Bill to return to this House. That was appreciated by both me and the Bill's supporters outside the House. I know that she would wish to join me in thanking both the umbrella freedom of information campaign and the community rights project, which have given us a great deal of assistance. Indeed, the Government's advisers have also been of enormous assistance in getting the wording into its correct and final form.
The effect of amendments Nos. 1, 3, 7 and 9 is that local authorities must not release information where disclosure is forbidden by other enactments. That principle, perhaps predictably, was already built into the Bill, but with one significant exception: the Bill overrode the Data Protection Act 1984. That Act mandatorily protects personal information which would enable an individual to be identified and which is held on computer or derived from computer data. While overriding the Act, the Bill sought in the schedule to give local authorities discretion to withhold personal information whether held on computer or by more traditional methods. Thus, all personal information held by local authorities was afforded similar discretionary protection.
However, in the light of discussions with appropriate Departments and with representatives of the Association of County Councils, the Association of District Councils and the Association of Metropolitan Authorities, we now all believe that the balance of advantage lies in removing the exception for three main reasons. Before I give them, I should pay tribute to the co-operation that I have received from representatives of the local authority associations, who have laboured long and hard to ensure that the Bill is workable by the local authorities.
The first reason is that the Data Protection Act responds to public anxiety in that it seeks to protect, as an intentional act of public policy, personal information held on computer or derived from data. It deliberately stops short of attempting to extend protection to personal 652 information held in more traditional forms. Therefore, it would be difficult to defend according privacy mandatorily to all personal information held on a computer, or derived from computer data, except information in the hands of local authorities, which would have the aforementioned discretion.
Secondly, the law would be clearer and more readily comprehensible by local authorities and the general public if the prohibition in the Data Protection Act were maintained for local authorities.
Thirdly, in practice, a local authority which wishes to exercise discretion over the disclosure of personal information held on computer or derived from data would still be able to do so. It could register, for specified information, a data recipient as narrow or as wide as it wished, extending in the latter case to the general public.
Those reasons appear to outweigh the case for the exception that was included in the Bill. The local authority associations made it clear that they would prefer the exemption to be removed. Amendments deleting references in the Bill to the Data Protection Act were accordingly tabled and accepted on Report in the other place.

§ Mr. Clive Soley (Hammersmith)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Squire) on his introduction of the Bill. It has been supported by the Opposition and by the freedom of information campaign, to which all hon. Members owe a debt. Indeed, the local authorities have supported it. It is a good step forward, and we welcome it.

§ Mr. Simon Hughes (Southwark and Bermondsey)
On behalf of the Liberal party, I wish to pay a similar compliment to the hon. Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Squire). He picked up the Bill that others had tried to introduce in the two previous Sessions of Parliament. The trio of hon. Members consisted of one from each major party, which shows the all-party nature of the Bill. As last year's sponsor, I am happy that someone else did the work this year, and even happier that the Bill is likely to become law. It is a good Bill and the hon. Gentleman deserves congratulations on the effort that he has put into it. I hope that he will pass on our congratulations to all those who have helped him to get the Bill on to the statute book.

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. William Waldegrave)
I am happy to join those hon. Members who have congratulated my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Squire) on a good Bill, which has been made better by the consideration given to it here and in another place. I am grateful for the tribute that he paid to my officials. I add my thanks to them, because it is much easier to reduce the broad principles of legislation than to carry out the detailed and hard slog of drafting a Bill and of searching for the many other Acts which must be brought into line with it. I know that Mr. Douglas McCreadie and his colleagues, with whom my hon. Friend has worked closely, will be grateful for his kind words.
The Government welcome the Bill and hope that it reaches the statute book without a last-minute hitch. It demonstrates the Government's willingness to listen to and develop sensible proposals for greater freedom of information. I congratulate my hon. Friend on the sterling work that he has done.
653 Of course, we all know how the careers of those who begin their parliamentary careers by introducing legislation on this subject develop. I wish my hon. Friend the success that he deserves as a result of this work.

§ Mr. Squire
I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
With this, it will be convenient to discuss Lords amendment No. 8.

§ Mr. Squire
The amendments are simply drafting changes. Clauses 1 and 2 insert respectively into the Local Government Act 1972 and the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 new sections 100G(2) and 50G(2).They require that a register be maintained of powers exercisable on a contingency basis by officers on behalf of the council. Such amendments bring the provision into line with the wording of the 1972 and 1973 Acts, which refer not to delegation but to arrangements for the discharge of functions.

§ Mr. Squire
I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
With this, it will be convenient to take Lords amendments Nos. 5, 6 and 15.

§ Mr. Squire
Amendment No. 4 extends the Bill to cover combined fire authorities, which may be constituted in England and Wales as bodies corporate under sections 5 and 6 of the Fire Services Act 1947. No such authorities exist at present, but they could be formed in the future to rover two or more counties. It seems sensible for the Bill to provide for this contingency and thus cover all fire authorities, existing and potential. It is consistent with the Bill's application to police authorities, which are all covered, including combined police authorities as bodies corporate under the Police Act 1964.
Amendments Nos. 5, 6 and 15 are consequential. Amendment No. 6 corrects a slight error in the Bill as it left the House of Commons. It removes the words "and the", which were inadvertently left hanging in the air in section 100G(1)(a), as applied by section 100J(4)(b). This provision requires the maintenance of a register of members of joint boards or joint committees.