---

Freedom of Information (Fees Regulation)

I believe that there has been progress and there are opportunities to make further progress along that particular avenue, through greater efficiencies, using IT systems and so on. These regulations are not needed as far as that process is concerned. What is the driving force behind these so-called reforms? The DCA says it is attempting to reduce the burden on public authorities imposed by more time-consuming and therefore costly requests. Is that aimed at a small number of people who use the Act regularly such as journalists? Only 10 per cent. of the requests come from journalists, with 60 per cent. coming from the general public and 20 per cent. from business and industry. The Government have published a report that they commissioned from a consultancy called Frontier Economics on the costs of the Act. It showed that the total cost, across the whole of the public sector, including the cost of the Information Commissioner and the information tribunal, was around £35 million annually. That is not a large sum when one compares it with the whole spend of Government throughout the country. Indeed, the Minister is quoted in last week’s Press Gazette as saying that the £25 million that central Government spends annually is ““money well spent””. I agree with her as far as that is concerned. The report costed the savings that might come from two proposals in the draft regulations at about £12 million a year. It calculated that taking account of reading, consideration and consultation time would allow authorities to reject about 8,100 requests that they have to deal with now, and that the aggregation proposal would allow 12,000 requests to be refused. It is not clear whether there has been double counting of those two options, but cutting out 20,000 requests in order to save less than £12 million annually strikes me as blunt and brutal, and quite contrary to whole intention of the Freedom of Information Act. If my hon. and learned Friend the Minister or any of our ministerial colleagues want a few tips on how to save some money, I can buy them a cup of tea in the Tea Room and tell them some of the things that we discovered on Select Committee on Public Accounts that would make people’s hair stand up. I am quite happy to make that offer to any of my ministerial colleagues. Finally, I have a high regard for my hon. and learned Friend the Minister. She has a distinct and quite definite independent streak, and she is not slow to speak out. I certainly found that out when I was the Minister taking through the then Armed Forces Bill and she was serving on the Committee on the Bill, as the Parliamentary Private Secretary to another Minister. She gave me some grief, and rightly so, because she was not happy with some of the things that I was saying and proposing. We disagreed, but I respected her powerful argument and the passion with which she employed it. I cannot believe that my hon. and learned Friend is too comfortable with the proposals. I hope that I and others who might catch your eye, Mr. Cook, will persuade her to reconsider and leave the consultation document where it belongs—on the shelf, gathering dust.