Maclean's Bill Hits The Skids

LibDem MP John Hemming is reporting HERE that the Lord Trefgarne is no longer sponsoring David Maclean's Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2007. On the face of it a private member's Bill which is unable to attract a sponsor in the Lords will not proceed and will therefore fail to become law.

This is excellent news as it will leave MP's expenses subject to the status ante quo, to wit that a fair amount of information concerning MP's expenses will continue to be available to the electorate.

That does not, however, obviate the need for a completely open and transparent system of having every detail of MP's and Peer's expenses available online, subject only to the requirements of the personal security of the individual MP or Peer or their employees. Thus nothing which discloses banking or credit card details will be available.

Many MP's and Peers will doubtless complain bitterly that this is an unacceptable intrusion into their privacy. Intrusion it certainly is but this is part of the price they are having to pay in order to restore public confidence in the system of salaries, pensions, allowances and expenses. In this case the public interest in having a full open disclosure online of all these details far outweighs their privacy.

It may be that there is a very very occasional item where a proper case can be made for withholding some or all details of some particular item. Rules can properly be devised to allow for an application to withhold details but it should be clear that such an application can only be granted for the most exceptional matters and that the MP or Peer will have to clear a very high hurdle in order to succeed.

The strong presumption must be in favour of full disclosure of every application for the payment of allowances and expenses, including those applications which are refused. If this is brought into force there is every reason to believe that, when no more Xmas iPods and Fish Tanks are being paid for by the public we will see a real slimming down of Parliamentary Expenses.