Meeting of the Parliament 21 June 2017
I start by welcoming the Government’s announcement, which takes the public accessibility and availability of information relating to FOI requests—information that is in official hands—to new heights.
I want to talk about the Tories—the party that lodged today’s motion. They have not always been the most enthusiastic supporters of FOI. In the stage 1 debate on the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Bill on 17 January 2002, Lord James Douglas-Hamilton described the bill as
“a costly experiment to tinker with what he”—
the then Minister for Justice—
“calls a culture of secrecy.”
Lord James went on to say that
“The Executive seems to be intent on forcing through unnecessary measures.”
David McLetchie reinforced the Tory antipathy to the very concept of an FOI bill by saying:
“If the bill has been shoved down the list of priorities, the people of Scotland, aside from a few political anoraks, will not shed many tears.”
I see that Murdo Fraser is in the chamber. He said that the bill
“does us no credit whatever.”
My own contribution to the debate was to say that
“A desire to keep information is always an expression of someone’s self-interest”.—[Official Report, 17 January 2002; c 5467, 5469, 5480, 5494, 5499.]
I am strongly in favour of freedom of information, to the extent that when officials in the Labour and Liberal Executive prepared guidance to civil servants on how to implement the bill, I was delighted to discover, as the result of an FOI request, that they quoted from my speeches.
In government, and subsequently, I discovered that operation of the 2002 act places a genuine and proper burden on our public servants, whether they are employed or elected.
There have been many ministers in this Administration and in previous ones, and as one of them, I found myself responding to a significant number of FOI requests.