Freedom Of Information: Westminster MPs are out of step with the Commonwealth

"Let me state at the outset that I personally find it anomalous that the administration of Parliament is not subject to freedom of information laws."

These words, delivered by the Speaker of the House this week, formed part of a persuasive argument in favour of binding MPs to the right-to-know legislation. With proper protection, said the Speaker, there was nothing MPs nor the administrators of Parliament need fear from freedom of information.

But the parliament being referred to in the speech was not Westminster and the eloquent words were not those of our own Speaker, Michael Martin. Instead it was Margaret Wilson, the Speaker of New Zealand's House of Representatives, who was putting the case for reform, 25 years after her country's parliament enacted its freedom of information laws.

It seems that, while MPs in this country are desperately fighting to have themselves removed from our Freedom of Information Act, in New Zealand the opposite argument is being made.

Today, MPs will vote on a Private Member's Bill proposed by the Tory MP David Maclean that will exempt MPs from the legislation that came into force just two years ago. Mr Maclean and a growing number of MPs believe their inclusion in the Freedom of Information Act is hindering their ability to do their job and risks breaching the privacy of constituents with whom they correspond.

But others argue that what MPs are demanding is in effect special treatment, a position that not only offends the philosophy behind the legislation, but one that is not in the spirit of our own democratic principles.

Yesterday, leaders of a coalition of campaign groups put their names to a letter urging MPs to think again. They included Agnes Callamard, Executive Director of Article 19; Maurice Frankel, Director of the Campaign for Freedom of Information; Jo Glanville, Editor of Index on Censorship; Roger Smith, Director of Justice; Shami Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty; and Peter Facey, Director of Unlock Democracy. They said: "For MPs to exempt themselves from the openness they have prescribed for others would only diminish Parliament's public standing."

However, it is true that most Westminster-style parliaments were not originally subject to such legislation. For example, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, as well as the US Congress, are not covered by freedom of information legislation.

But in 1999, a Commonwealth Law Ministers Conference considered the issue and recommended that parliaments should be covered. So today freedom of information legislation has been extended to parliaments in India, South Africa, Ireland and the West Indies. The UK legislation also included Parliament within the Freedom of Information Act 2000 which came into force in January 2005.

The exemption debate in Britain has also been picked up in New Zealand. But for Ms Wilson, who as a former minister in the New Zealand government experienced at first hand the workings of the freedom of information laws, the case for bringing the New Zealand parliament into the scope of the legislation is too strong to ignore.

She said in her speech on Tuesday: "Regardless of the formal legal requirements, there is a culture of openness and transparency within Parliament. There is little to fear by Members if those concepts were extended to Members of Parliament in the OIA. I trust we do not have to wait another 25 years before we see such an amendment."

r.verkaik@independent.co.uk