Derek McDowell (Labour)

We were discussing section 6 which extends the number of areas in which a refusal can be made in circumstances where the head neither confirms nor denies the existence of information in the first place. I spoke to some of the Minister of State's officials yesterday after the debate and they persuaded me that there were some limited areas where it was appropriate to proceed in this way. Nonetheless, this is still structured in such a way as to leave it open to abuse. Our real difficulty is that where a refusal is made in those circumstances, it is not open to be tested. We cannot test, in particular, whether the public interest has been taken into account to the extent it should by the person making the decision.