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Companies Bill [HL]

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 954. Amendments Nos. 954 and 957 delete provisions aimed at applying the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to the Professional Oversight Board of the Financial Reporting Council. When we last debated this, my noble friend Lord McKenzie explained that the Government understood the arguments in favour of greater public access to information held by bodies carrying out public functions and that the prospective review of the coverage of the Freedom of Information Act to be carried out by the Department for Constitutional Affairs was the best way of addressing which public functions of which bodies should be included. This will cover the various parts and functions of the FRC, some of which it may be appropriate to cover and some of which it maynot be. At Third Reading, the House voted in favour of opposition amendments that would effectively exercise by statute an order-making power in the Freedom of Information Act to apply that Act to the body or bodies to which the Secretary of State delegates certain functions under the Companies Bill. In practice, this body is likely to be the Professional Oversight Board to which the equivalent functions under the existing law are delegated. The Government remain of the view that it would be better to use the process provided by the Freedom of Information Act, and to take a consistent overall approach to bodies carrying out public functions, including the various parts of the FRC. As I have said, we accept that there are good arguments for extending the Freedom of Information Act to many non-statutory bodies that carry out public functions, such as the POB or the private prisons and school academies. There are also arguments that the costs of applying the Freedom of Information Act to some bodies may outweigh the benefits. That is why Section 5 of the Freedom of Information Act provides a process and a power for adding such bodies if it is appropriate to do so. My noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs is considering the impact of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 on the public bodies that are already covered by the legislation. He recently published the results of an independent report he had commissioned to look into the impact of the Act on resources in handling freedom of information requests and is now considering the conclusions of the report. He believes that we should ensure that the Act is operating effectively first, and only then should we consider extending the coverage to further bodies, such as the POB, using the power in Section 5 of the Act, ensuring that the application of the Act does not have a disproportionate impact on their ability to carry out their functions. We should not short-circuit that process by singling out the POB to be subjected to the Freedom of Information Act through this Bill. I beg to move. Moved, That the House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 954.—(Lord Sainsbury of Turville.)