Freedom of Information: Limiting journalists' ability to investigate just keeps the public in the dark

What we know about government is a tiny fraction of what ministers and civil servants are doing with our money

Chris Grayling has accused the media of using the Freedom of Information Act ‘to dig up stories’ (AFP/Getty)

There was a time when the government loved the Freedom of Information Act. Back in November 2002, I went to a press conference led by Yvette Cooper, then a junior minister in Tony Blair’s Lord Chancellor’s department, and as a result responsible for FOI. The 2000 Act was being implemented gradually, and as an example of how wonderful the opening up of Whitehall was, Cooper highlighted the release of a secret Ministry of Defence file of a UFO “sighting” in 1980. But that was 1980, I remember thinking, what are you lot up to now?

What we know about government is a tiny fraction of what ministers and civil servants are doing with our money. To use the analogy told by someone who went from journalism into government, it is a gigantic iceberg of information, with the media and the public aware of just a small amount above the surface.

This makes Chris Grayling’s comments about FOI all the more extraordinary. The Leader of the Commons may have said the Government is “committed” to the FOI Act. But for a Cabinet minister to accuse journalists of “misusing” freedom of information as a “research tool” is pretty disturbing and has all the chilling hallmarks of a government desperate to cover up more ice.

Making an FOI request this past decade and a half has been difficult as it is. Trying to find out information is tortuous because there are so many criteria to fill. Repeated requests come back with get-outs such as finding the information could only be done at disproportionate cost, or the deeply suspicious claim that the government or official body does not hold the information (usually because the question has not been asked in exactly the right way). It took several years for journalists and campaigners to squeeze out a tiny amount of information on MPs’ expenses, and the full details of that scandal only emerged because, in the end, the only way this was going to come out was through a whopping leak. It took five years, from the original request by The Guardian, for Prince Charles’s “black spider memos” to be made public.

Grayling’s comments are hypocritical because, while he was in opposition, he made political capital out of information gleaned through FOI requests, including on immigration, welfare and knife crime. And for him to accuse “the media” of trying to dig up stories is odd, because as a former journalist he should know that the media is exactly that – the interface between government and the public. If you try to limit our ability to investigate, it is the public you are keeping in the dark.

The commission which is looking at FOI laws is chilling – not least because one of its members is Jack Straw, the former Labour minister who brought in the Act and later said he regretted its scope. There is the possibility of charging for requests, which will penalise individual campaigners who are unlikely to have much money, and limiting further what we can ask.

At the same time, the police use the Terrorism Act to seize the laptop of Newsnight journalist Secunder Kermani, who had interviewed Western jihadists, while next week Theresa May will introduce a Bill allowing the security services to snoop on the internet activities of ordinary citizens. The iceberg is being pushed further beneath the water, and it is the public who will lose out.

Osborne’s credit rating

At least we have the proceedings of Parliament, which are always going to be public. Last week, while the Government was being humiliated in the Lords over tax credits, MPs were voting against a bid to scrap the “tampon tax” which charges 5 per cent VAT on female sanitary items. Shortly after the vote, the Treasury put out a statement from one of its ministers saying that the UK government would try to work with the EU (who are responsible for levying this rate) to agree to reclassify tampons as zero rated. While Britain isn’t exactly in credit with Brussels as David Cameron tries to renegotiate our membership, this would be a great opportunity for George Osborne, severely damaged by the tax credits row, to claw back some support by scrapping VAT on tampons in his Autumn Statement later this month.

He would win over women and Eurosceptics, which is not a bad aim for someone wanting to be the next Conservative Party leader, and I bet he is already drawing up the plans.

Harman to pick up her pen

Harriet Harman has announced that she is writing her memoirs, and they have the potential to be pretty explosive. No other politician has worked closely with all five successive Labour leaders, from Neil Kinnock to Ed Miliband. She says publishers want her to spill the beans on as many “big beasts” as possible, but she doesn’t see things like that. While I’m looking forward to a “political memoir devoted to the angst of being a knackered working mother”, I would love her to dish the dirt on all those swaggering male egos in Westminster.

Labour’s laughter lines

Andrew Fisher, a senior adviser to Jeremy Corbyn, has apologised for tweeting support for a Class War activist who was standing against Labour candidate Emily Benn in Croydon South at the general election. Some think Fisher should be expelled from Labour. But he claims his “support” for Class War was misinterpreted and was a joke. Here is the tweet from August 2014: “If you live in Croydon South, vote with dignity, vote @campaignbeard” (@campaignbeard was the Twitter account of the Croydon South Class War parliamentary candidate). It seems the Labour leader’s famous sense of humour is shared by his inner circle.

Twitter: @janemerrick23