The third defeat for reversing FOI
(Jane Ashley is writing for this blog while Martin is temporarily involved in other ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ projects.)
Yesterday's over the proposal to change the law to block the full release of MPs' expenses under FOI means that the experience of FOI in the UK, in at least one way, contrasts with that in some other countries.
In many places, the introduction of FOI has been followed by a backlash from those in authority which has led to restrictions on access to information. In Ireland, for example, a few years after the introduction of FOI laws, the government introduced up-front fees for FOI requests .
However, in the UK there have been three attempts to cut back on the access provided by the law since FOI was introduced in 2005, and none of them has succeeded.
The first was , which would have exempted Parliament from FOI. It failed when no-one would sponsor it in the House of Lords. The second was the to make it easier to reject FOI requests as too costly. Gordon Brown dropped this proposal after he took over from Tony Blair as prime minister, . And the third was this latest attempt.
FOI was once regarded as an issue of concern to the "chattering classes", but it now seems, in the UK at least, to have acquired more populist overtones. And President Obama too is a new "era of openness".
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