Derek McDowell (Labour)

I want to tease out the issue of factual information that no one other than Senator Maurice Hayes has touched on. The definition is of most importance in section 19 of the original Act. Currently, it is open to a head, usually the Secretary General or deciding officer, to release factual information, irrespective of whether it was submitted to Government. The Government is seeking to define what factual information is. I would like to think that, for example, minutes of meetings and the analysis provided by the tax strategy group would be published. We have got used to seeing this analysis in the past four or five years. I am not sure that would be allowable within the current definition of factual information. I accept there is a certain amount of doubt.

Section 2 of this Bill refers to statistical and econometric information and it is conceivable that it would be allowed. I would like the Minister of State to reassure the House that he thinks it will be. If he is not in a position to give this reassurance, as I think is the case, we will seek to table an amendment on Report Stage to clarify the point. It is important that we still have access to reports that underpin Government decisions, such as that of the tax strategy group, since a veil is to be drawn over so much more of what is decided in terms of Government memorandums.

The Labour Party has taken the approach of opposing the entire Bill because we did not want to be compromised by suggesting less restrictive – but restrictive nonetheless – provisions would be acceptable. There are certain amendments we will seek to raise on Report Stage that we believe we can usefully stand over.