AMENDMENT TO COMMONS AMENDMENT No.18 (Hansard, 11 July 1995)

§ Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 18A as an amendment to Commons Amendment No. 18.
My Amendment No. 18A on the Marshalled List seeks to provide that the charges that the agency can recover are "reasonable" charges. This clause relates to charging for services and facilities provided by the agency in the course of carrying out its functions.
At earlier stages of the Bill there was a good deal of discussion about the level of charging by some of the present authorities. I was criticised for referring to an occasion when the National Rivers Authority had, I believe, charged £100 for a sheet of information. I was told that this was not merely a copying charge but that it reflected the research that had gone into preparing the 1489 fact sheet. Without going into the merits of that particular charge, I believe that it points very clearly to the need to have some sort of limit on charging. These are public bodies. Although their function is not to work for private individuals—for developers, and so on—it is nevertheless entirely right that the information that they hold should be made available to the public on a basis which allows the public real access, not access only if they can afford a substantial charge. This is a freedom of information point. It is for that reason that I seek to amend Commons Amendment No. 18 by providing that the charges that can be made shall be no more than are reasonable.

Earl Ferrers
My Lords, the noble Baroness may be misguided in her attempt to amend the legislation in this way. However, I quite understand that she is concerned about the provision of information. My noble friends Lord Ullswater and Lord Lindsay gave fairly specific reassurances in Committee about both the provision of information and the agencies' powers to charge reasonable fees for providing specific information. I understand the concern that those fees should be reasonable. However, I think it would be unreasonable to consider that those fees would not be reasonable.
As regards provision of information by the agencies, the noble Baroness may be stretching the point a little. Both Commons Amendment No. 18 and her Amendment No. 18A are about the environment agencies' ability to charge for carrying out their functions. Clearly they ought to be able to charge; and clearly it would be quite intolerable if the agencies were not reasonable in the charges that they made. I do not believe that the noble Baroness's amendment to Commons Amendment No. 18 would be suitable.

§ Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, I cannot pretend to be entirely happy with that answer, although I am not surprised either. Perhaps the best that we can do is rely on the good faith of Ministers who appoint members of the agencies in ensuring that, if the agencies are out of line in their charging policy and are making charges that are not appropriate in the eyes of the public, as the appointing Ministers, they bring that to the attention of the agencies and lean on them to behave reasonably. I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment No. 18A.