§ 35. Mr. Peter BottomleyTo ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster how the House will receive information about decisions on appeals against a Department's refusal to make information available.
§ Mr. WaldegraveThe parliamentary ombudsman will keep the House informed of his findings when investigating complaints under the code of practice.
§ Mr. BottomleyThe House and the country will understand that using the parliamentary ombudsman as a method of appeal is a far more practical and speedy way to get information than trying to use a freedom of information Bill or Act. Will the parliamentary ombudsman have sufficient resources, and will the House have an opportunity to consider a range of reports when enough experience has been gathered?
§ Mr. WaldegraveI strongly agree with my hon. Friend because I think that the system will be cheaper, quicker and more easily accessible to the citizen. We have doubled the resources that are available to the Parliamentary Commissioner to make sure that he can do the work swiftly and with the competence that we always associate with his work.
§ Mr. GarrettWill the Minister confirm that the multitude of exclusions and exemptions from his code of practice on open government means that there will be no official disclosures on, for example, the arms-to-Iraq affair, about which he will no doubt be pleased, or the Pergau dam affair? Will he also confirm that there will be no disclosures of policy analysis or of any information that the Government do not consider reliable? Is not the truth of the matter that the code of practice is just a sham?
§ Mr. WaldegraveNo. The exclusions from the code of practice are those that are found in most freedom of information legislation abroad. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Mr. Bottomley) that the system will work to achieve the objectives, which I share, of those who campaigned for greater freedom of information and that it will do so at much less cost and with much greater ease of access for the citizen.