HC Deb 27 July 1998 vol 317 cc86-7W
Mrs. Dunwoody

To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if the operations of the company managing the Channel Tunnel will be covered by the proposed Freedom of Information Act. [51213]

Mr. Kilfoyle

The proposed Freedom of Information Act is intended principally to cover the public sector but it will also extend to private sector companies where these companies are carrying out functions conferred on them by statute. The two companies which form Eurotunnel, the Channel Tunnel Group Ltd and France-Manche SA operating under the Channel Tunnel Concession Agreement are commercial organisations whose management of the Channel Tunnel does not fall into this category. Eurotunnel itself will not therefore come within the scope of the proposed Freedom of Information Act, although information relating to Eurotunnel held by the relevant public authorities will be within scope.

Mrs. Dunwoody

To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what assessment he has made of the consistency of Clause 33.3 of the Treaty of Canterbury with the Government's policy of open Government. [51373]

Mr. Kilfoyle

Clause 33.3 of the Channel Tunnel Concession Agreement signed in 1986 states that each of the parties to that Agreement and the Intergovernmental Commission and the Safety Authority,shall hold in confidence all Documents and other information whether technical or commercial supplied to them by or on behalf of any other party hereto relating to the Fixed Link and shall not save as required by law or procedural practices publish or otherwise disclose the same otherwise than for the purposes contemplated by [the Agreement]".

The reference to "law or procedural practices" ensures that the provision is consistent with the requirements of the current Code of Practice on Access to Government Information and, when it comes into force, our proposed Freedom of Information Act.