Former Shadow Justice Minister Backs NMA Campaign to Defend FOI Appeal Rights
The selection criteria for appointing members of the Chilcot inquiry could have remained secret without the Freedom of Information Act’s robust appeals process, former Shadow Justice Minister Andy Slaughter has warned.
Speaking in a debate on the Justice Committee’s Courts and Tribunals Fees report this week, Mr Slaughter backed the News Media Association’s campaign to keep the right to appeal decisions by the Information Commissioner to the First Tier Tribunal, and to strengthen FOI through other measures.
The NMA and Campaign for Freedom of Information are among the campaigners fighting to keep the right to appeal to the FTT after the Courts and Tribunals Fees report from the Justice Committee said it should be scrapped.
Speaking in the debate, Justice Committee chairman Robert Neill indicated that the committee had not heard any new evidence on the issue and had simply adopted the position taken by the Independent Commission for Freedom of Information.
Mr Slaughter highlighted the fact that 20 per cent of the appeals to the FTT were successful between January 2014 and March 2015 and gave examples of important information which had been disclosed as a result of such appeals.
“I am grateful to the News Media Association, a combination of the Newspaper Society and the Newspaper Publishers Association, which, understandably and for very good reasons, wishes to see this right of appeal. I am particularly grateful to the Campaign for Freedom of Information, led by the redoubtable Maurice Frankel, who has rung alarm bells on the issue,” Mr Slaughter said.
“Let me give half a dozen examples. The First Tier Tribunal ordered the Cabinet Office to release information about the adoption of the selection criteria for appointing members of the Chilcot inquiry.
“It told the Ministry of Defence that it was wrong to withhold information about its failure to warn soldiers that they will get a criminal record if convicted of minor disciplinary offences. It ordered the Department for Education to reveal payments to new sponsors taking over failing academy schools.
“It ordered the Cabinet Office to disclose documentation for the expenses, of up to £115,000 per annum each, claimed by four former Prime Ministers in connection with their public duties. It also ordered—the Minister will appreciate this one—the Ministry of Justice to identify landlords convicted of Housing Act 2004 offences for letting dangerous or grossly substandard accommodation.
“Those are just some examples from central Government; there are even more examples from the national health service and local government,” Mr Slaughter continued.
“It is right that the Information Commissioner’s Office is independent, but the Information Commissioner does not always get everything right. A 20 per cent success on appeal rate is good, and the role of the First-tier Tribunal is materially different from that of the Information Commissioner. It brings a judicial eye to proceedings and, from the results that we have seen, allows for fresh and fuller scrutiny.”
Asked by Mr Slaughter why he had “simply gone along with” the Independent Commission for Freedom of Information’s recommendation to scrap the right of appeal to the FTT, Mr Neill responded: “Simply that there was no compelling evidence presented to us to the contrary.
“We followed the evidence, as we did in the other matters. It is not because we are afraid of pulling our punches; as the hon. Gentleman has seen, we have not pulled our punches in some areas. We simply did not find any evidence to suggest that that assessment by the independent body was wrong.”
This morning, local and national newspapers splashed on the findings of the long-awaited Chilcot report on Britain’s role in the Iraq war, focusing their coverage on former prime Minister Tony Blair, and the reaction of families of service personnel killed in the war.