HC Deb 07 July 1999 vol 334 cc534-5W
Mr. Peter Bradley

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many submissions were made in the course of the consultation on the 1997 White Paper, "Your Right to Know"; and how many raised objections concerning the substantial harm test as set out in the White Paper. [89361]

Mr. Straw

572 pieces of correspondence received in response to the White Paper "Your Right to Know" were published in six volumes, under the title "Your Right to Know—Consultation Responses". Copies were placed in the Library and published on the Internet. Correspondence where the author requested confidentiality has not been published.

31 of the published items of correspondence made explicit statements regarding the substantial harm test as set down in the White Paper. Of these, seven (23 per cent.) did not express an opinion as to the desirability or otherwise of the substantial harm test, five (16 per cent.) expressed an opinion in favour of substantial harm, and 19 (61 per cent.) raised objections.

The five in favour of substantial harm were from the Canadian Information and Privacy Commissioner, the Chief Constable of Durham, Charter 88, the National Steering Committee of Nuclear Free Local Authorities and the Campaign for Freedom of Information.

The 19 that raised objections about substantial harm were from a number of individuals and organisations including British Nuclear Fuels Plc, Coopers and Lybrand, British Energy, the Building Societies Commission, the Commission for the New Towns, Lancashire County Council and the Confederation of British Industry (CBI). No one particular interest group or sector dominated the correspondence, objections to substantial harm were received from members of the public and from organisations.

Comments made include: substantial harm, as a test, is unworkable"; British Energy's preferred approach is that harm would be caused or that there is a reasonable expectation of harm"; it is difficult to form an objective interpretation of any adjective such as 'substantial' in this context. It would be better to have no adjective because it is already difficult to run the public service really effectively, and if disclosure is likely to cause 'harm' then it is better not to disclose"; the proposals already recognise the need to supply a 'simple harm' test to disclosure of policy advice. It would not, therefore, seem to follow that it would be sensible to apply a 'substantial harm' test to the other categories, particularly those relating to law enforcement and safety issues"; the CBI believes the test governing disclosure should be one of 'Simple' harm and not 'substantial' harm…if the test is to be one of 'substantial harm' then we believe the competitiveness of business will be affected".

Clearly, a significantly greater number of correspondents who commented on substantial harm saw difficulties with the test than saw it as unproblematical. This was one of the considerations taken into account when we decided, in preparing the draft Bill, to revisit this test and see whether it could be made more workable.