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Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill

It is a pleasure to speak on the large group of amendments before us. As I said in an earlier intervention, I had the pleasure of serving on the Standing Committee that considered the Freedom of Information Bill, along with the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mark Fisher), although when I asked him about it earlier, he had forgotten that he served on it, so broad is his experience in the House. He did indeed serve on the Committee, and he made a valuable contribution to it. I feel a degree of proprietorship over the provisions of the 2000 Act. In many ways, it was not perfect, and we tried hard to make it stronger. Nevertheless, it fulfilled some of its objectives. That is why I am loth to accept anything that waters down its provisions, especially when the arguments for doing so are so sparse, so badly expressed and so vacuous in nature.