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Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill

These are important matters, as everyone who is here testifies, but there is huge merit in the present system being retained. If I think that my police force, the Metropolitan police, has far too few police and I write to the commissioner of the Met police saying that I think that Southwark should have 200 more police, surely I must expect that to come into the public domain. If I am saying one thing privately and writing another thing publicly, I should be exposed for doing that. If on the other hand I want to say to the commissioner that one of his deputies is corrupt, presumably, I should have the intelligence to ask to see the commissioner privately to say that to him face to face and not put it in a document, which could then be released, with all the implications that would follow.