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Business of the House

The hon. Gentleman is right to raise the subject, and of course I will give him every assistance, because the matter touches on parliamentary privilege. I should just say that I was the Minister who had the unenviable task of taking the Freedom of Information Bill through its stages in the House, and we were asked by hon. Members on all sides to go further, rather than to provide what I thought were sensible protections, on requests for information, including requests from Parliament. However, the only people who supported those sensible restrictions were my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Olner), and myself, on the Treasury Bench. I think that many hon. Members on both sides of the House now rue the day when the House decided—in the end, we had to accept its wish—that extensive privilege should be given to inquiries, without properly balancing the rights of those who held the information. Of course I will follow the matter up, and I will do so in consultation with Mr. Speaker and the Clerk of the House.