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Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill

I apologise to the hon. Lady, but I am going to be very brief. Of course the Library will not know some of the details of the problem. I have in my hand a letter sent to an hon. Member by a third party that boasts that that third party has acquired correspondence from that Member that was sent to a public authority on behalf of a constituent. I have other examples. Hon. Members who have supported me in the Aye Lobby have told me that some of their correspondence relating to a constituent has been released against their will. Theoretically, it could be protected under data protection—[Hon. Members: ““Legally!””] But it has not been. An officer of a local authority—inadvertently, by mistake or by design—released correspondence that the hon. Member to whom I referred thought was confidential. That is damaging. My Bill is necessary to give an absolute guarantee that the correspondence that Members of Parliament write to public authorities on behalf of our constituents or others remains confidential.