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Freedom of Information Act 2000

My Lords, first, I thank the right honourable gentleman the Secretary of State for Justice for making his Statement available before this afternoon’s debate. There are a number of political reasons why the right honourable gentleman should be embarrassed at having to make this Statement today. In particular, if he was going to exercise his veto, why did he wait to do so until after the appeal process was completed? It makes his action appear to be a flagrant breach of due process. Why did he not make it clear at the outset that he found the request for the minutes constitutionally unacceptable, or have the Government made up their mind on such a crucial constitutional issue only today? Did they remain in doubt about this matter until the very last minute? Moreover, in the right honourable gentleman’s Statement, he makes much of protecting the public interest in Cabinet secrecy. Yet the Government exhibited no compunction about releasing Conservative Cabinet documents on the ERM when it suited them. Constitutionally, however, the Government are right to issue the veto. In its decision, the tribunal states that it is, "““the exceptional circumstances of the two relevant meetings that create a very strong case in favour of the formal records being disclosed””." With great respect, the opposite is the case; the more crucial a matter is to the national interest, and the more potentially divisive the strongly held views on either side of the argument, the more important it is to retain the principle of the secrecy of Cabinet deliberations. If this were not so, it would be virtually impossible to maintain the constitutional convention of collective Cabinet responsibility for its decisions. Collective Cabinet responsibility is, as your Lordships well know, crucial to our system of government in Parliament. Without it, day-to-day executive decision-making would simply break down. In a constitutional system in which there is no separation of powers between legislature and executive, this consequence would be inevitable. I add this; the more momentous a decision, the more important it is for members of the Cabinet to engage in exchanges of the utmost candour. The knowledge that their deliberations would quickly be made public could prove to be profoundly inhibiting to freedom of expression in that context. Alternatively, decision-making could be driven even further from the Cabinet table and rapidly towards more informal avenues of communication, such as those exposed so alarmingly by the noble Lord, Lord Butler, in his admirable report. With respect, those who are seeking to make public the contents of these minutes are aiming at the wrong target; for they are likely to reveal very little, especially as the texts of the two advices of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, are now in the public realm. It is much more important that we focus on the observations made by the noble Lord, Lord Butler, about the realities of Cabinet government today. His report states, for example, that, "““wider collective discussion and consideration by the Cabinet to the frequent but unscripted occasions when the Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary and Defence Secretary briefed the Cabinet orally””;" and again: "““Excellent quality papers were written by officials, but these were not discussed in Cabinet or in Cabinet Committee””;" and again: "““The absence of papers on the Cabinet agenda so that Ministers could obtain briefings in advance from the Cabinet Office, their own departments or from the intelligence agencies plainly reduced their ability to prepare properly for such discussions””." I emphasise that what I have said does not mean that the decision to go to war should not be intimately scrutinised. Indeed, there is now an unanswerable case for an inquiry. When are the Government going to announce it?