THE SUNDAY ROAST

Everybody knows that MP’s consider themselves to be a breed apart, but now they want to put themselves outside the reach of the law as well. Tory MP and chief whip David Maclean (Penrith and Borders) had his Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill passed by the Commons on Friday night, and both the Observer and Sunday Sun (strange bedfellows wouldn’t you say) offer scathing reviews of our politicians desires to avert public scrutiny.

By removing the House of Commons classification as a public body, Maclean's amendment would effectively;

“remove the whole of parliament from the list of public authorities obliged to release information under the anti secrecy act, which came into force in 2005. The public would not be able to scrutinise members spending on taxis, trains and flights, funded by the tax payer.”

Despite being elected by the people to serve the people, the Commons is clearly viewed by its inmates as a private club. Never mind, surely we have a knight in shining armour round the corner in the form of Gordon Brown, a man whose promise to make government more transparent is only seven days old. Well, not exactly. Twenty six ministers and supporters of Brown have backed the amendment, including Ed Balls, Gordon’s closet chum in the Commons. Several other “yes” votes also came from MP’s who will definitely be on the new PM's Christmas card list. Should we be surprised by Brown’s failure to stick to his promises? When you consider how the act has caught him out in the past, no we shouldn’t. The ending of pension fund relief, the decision to cash in the countries family sliver re gold reserves and the decision to abandon changes to corporate reporting rules all came to light via FoI requests and all resulted in the then Chancellor’s judgement being called into question.

Not all MP’s have supported the amendment, but while their “no” votes packed no punch, an unlikely source of salvation has emerged; the House of Lords. Opponents of the change are already mobilising to have the amendment bounced back to the Commons, and if this can’t be done, they intend to table an amendment which would exempt the Lords from the changes, thereby shaming the Commons with an “us and them” scenario. If nothing else, the actions of the Lord’s shows the need for an effective second scrutiny chamber.

The actions of Maclean and Brown’s breaking of a promise before he even has his feet under the table at No 10 don’t bode well for the future. It will be a very sad day for democracy if the House of Commons sets itself apart from laws which are there solely to propagate freedom of information and expression. The ramifications of this amendment will also hinder the way we scrutinise our councillors, with certain boroughs already formulating plans to withdraw the right to view councillors expenses claims, attendance rates etc on the grounds that their status is the same as MP’s. Such restrictions would not only be a blow to local democracy, but would stop in its tracks investigative journalism, such as the Shields Gazette ongoing scrutiny of councillors attendance rates within this Borough.