Recent Articles
Expect libel reform now that MPs are affected
Dec 7, 2009 FOI in Parliament, FOI in the news 5 Comments
To some it might seem that today’s article in the Guardian is bad news:
Super-injunctions do limit freedom of speech, Speaker’s lawyers advise
• Guidance contradicts justice minister’s stance
• Select committee fears for parliamentary privilege
But that is to overlook the historic tradition whereby MPs don’t give a fig about the invasion of our privacy, civil liberties or freedom of speech up until they find their own affected.
Who cares about the common man’s freedom of speech being stifled by the world’s worst libel law when you have granted yourself immunity from it through parliamentary privilege? It was a similar story with draconian and disturbingly far-ranging anti-terrorist laws that were all very well up until an MP was arrested in his office (Damien Green MP) or bugged while visiting a prison inmate (Sadiq Khan MP). Then – suddenly – MPs had second thoughts about the totalitarian culture they had nurtured.
Therefore as a result of MPs now finding themselves liable under the libel law I conclude that libel reform is set to become a top priority on the legislative agenda. You read it here first!
Reformer of the Year
Nov 19, 2009 Campaigns, FOI in the news, Freedom of Information 14 Comments
I don’t get to blog much these days as I’m in the final weeks of my book deadline but I ought to mention that I recently received a very welcome piece of news: I won the title of Political Reformer of the Year 2009 after an online election held by the think-tank Reform.
I was lucky to be endorsed by several influential blogs including Guido Fawkes, Left Foot Forward (two sites unusually united), the Daily Telegraph’s Benedict Brogan, and Devil’s Kitchen,
Thanks to these bloggers and to everyone who voted. Here is the press release from Reform.
Heather Brooke is “Reformer of the Year” for MPs’ expenses work
Freedom of Information campaigner wins Reform poll in landslide
Heather Brooke, the Freedom of Information campaigner, has won a poll to find the Reformer of the Year for 2009. Ms Brooke, who was a pivotal figure in unveiling the MPs’ expenses scandal, won the title in a landslide, securing over a thousand of the 1,157 votes.
She played a leading role in the MPs’ expenses saga, winning a High Court case against the House of Commons for the full disclosure of second homes allowances. The ruling was the driving force behind the resulting reform of the Parliamentary expense system.
Entrants to the competition gave a wide variety of impassioned reasons for supporting Ms Brooke:
“She created a totemic symbol of the sort of low-level corruption and waste that will need to be eliminated across government, and proved that the best way to do this is exposure and transparency.”
“Without access to information we are completely stumped.”
“She was the prime mover in the campaign to implement the citizen taxpayers’ rights to Freedom of Information, in spite of the continued apathy of the citizen body.”
“Politics in Britain will never be the same again, it has been forcibly reformed. That’s why she’s clearly the Reformer of the Year: no contest.”
“She brought about the first real serious talk, albeit since forgotten about, of reform to our politics in decades. Others on the list deserve honourable mention but Heather stands out.”
“She had the guts and determination to see through what must have seemed like crawling up Everest. Well done indeed.”
The strength of the public reaction helped Heather Brooke to take an incredible 89% of the votes. Second place was awarded to Douglas Carswell, the reforming MP for Harwich and Clacton and author of The Plan, with third place going to Michael Gove, who plans a big shake-up of the schools system if the Conservatives win power next year.
Reform’s Director, Andrew Haldenby, said: “Heather has shown how transparency can reform Parliament. Now the whole public sector needs to be opened up in the same way, to tackle the real waste that lies at the heart of government.”
Reform is an independent, non-party, charitable think tank (registered charity the Reform Research Trust, no. 1103739) whose mission is to set out a better way to deliver public services and economic prosperity. We believe that by liberalising the public sector, breaking monopoly and extending choice, high quality services can be made available for everyone.
Public locked out: FOI won’t cover private prisons
Nov 11, 2009 FOI in Parliament, Justice & Courts, Law Enforcement 6 Comments
Despite being paid for by the public, prisons operated under government contract by private companies such as Group 4 will not be covered by a proposed extension of the freedom of information act. This marks a dangerous shift in which public services paid for by us are no longer accountable to us because they have been outsourced to a private company.
This was re-stated in a minister’s written answer yesterday in parliament.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/cm091110/text/91110w0010.htm
10 Nov 2009 : Column 218WPrisons: Freedom of Information
Philip Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice whether he has plans to extend to private prisons the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. [298646]
Mr. Wills: On 16 July, the Government published the response to its consultation on extending the Freedom of Information Act by means of a section 5 order. It noted that it was not minded to include private prisons in an initial order. However, the Government have made it clear it intends to keep the extension of the Act under review.
Hidden High Court Injuctions
Oct 16, 2009 Campaigns, Freedom of Information, Justice & Courts 6 Comments
The Twitter vs Trafigura case continues though it really is the Guardian newspaper and Wikileaks who have been driving this amazing story that illustrates the total lack of freedom of expression granted to the citizens of Britain.
For those who haven’t been following the case: The Guardian was attempting to report on Trafigura, a multi-national oil and commodity trader, but received legal threats from Carter-Ruck. This led to an injunction stopping them from publishing their findings. Yet not only were they prevented from publishing their article but the injunction also prevented them from reporting about the injunction!
These ’superinjunctions’ are an incredibly draconian power and in a strong democracy they would only be used as a last resort in the most limited of circumstances – and when used this would be public knowledge. However, it now transpires that not only are these injunctions granted by judges with seemingly not a second thought for open justice, but there is no record of the judge’s actions either.
The Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Bridget Prentice said yesterday, in answer to a written Parliamentary question that the information is not currently available and the High Court has no intention to collate such data:
Paul Farrelly MP: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice if he will (a) collect and (b) publish statistics on the number of non-reportable injunctions issued by the High Court in each of the last five years. [293012]
Bridget Prentice: The information requested is not available. The High Court collects figures on applications, however injunctions are not separately identifiable, and there are currently no plans to amend databases to do so.
I agree with wikileaks: “Time for UK journalists grow some balls and start violating censorship injunctions”
It is bad enough that superinjunctions exist at all, but it is absolutely appalling that there are not even records kept of how often they are used. Pressure needs to be put on the High Court to record these occasions, and make the details public as a matter of urgency.
When Heather met Paxman
Oct 13, 2009 Campaigns, Central Government, FOI in Parliament, FOI in the news, Freedom of Information 5 Comments
The story that keeps on giving has given me another blast on the airwaves. I’ve been on the TV and radio the last few days talking about the internal audit done on MPs’ expenses in which several hundred MPs have been asked to pay back money. I’ve been brutal, accepting only a few requests due to my tight book deadline, but one appearance I certainly wasn’t going to turn down was Newsnight with the great and glorious Jeremy Paxman.
It’s long been an ambition to get a grilling from him. Oooh!
And it certainly made up for having to debate with Sir Stuart Bell yet again.
You can check out the online repartee on Youtube.
A small victory for openness
Oct 4, 2009 Campaigns, FOI in Parliament, Freedom of Information 2 Comments
The Committee on Standards in Public Life has now decided to publish my statement in full after I complained vociferously against their timid lawyers’ claims that it was potentially defamatory.
I received an email while away on holiday the other week: “The Committee having weighed the risks decided to publish the submission.”
It is available to view at: http://public-standards.org.uk/Library/MP_Expenses_E681_Heather_Brooke.pdf [PDF]
Journalism.co.uk reports it will now try and find out what happened to the other 66 submissions.
OFCOM register of hospitality
Sep 18, 2009 Central Government 2 Comments
Hmm – it’s 3pm on a Friday and I’ve just had Ofcom’s response to my freedom of informaton act request seeking their registers of gifts and hospitality. Ofcom is the regulator of the broadcast industry and as you’ll see there’s a lot of ’stakeholder engagement’ in evidence. Friday afternoons are the preferred time for government disclosures of an embarrassing nature so I’m hoping this is no exception.
Please – everyone – dig in. I’m particularly interested to hear what media insiders make of Ofcom’s response and to the lobbying. Please send me comments here or on twitter (newsbrooke).
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/registers_of_gifts_hospitality#incoming-44534
Video: My talk to the Centre of Investigative Journalism
Sep 18, 2009 Central Government, FOI in Parliament 1 Comment
Here is a talk I gave to the Centre of Investigative Journalism this summer, for those interested in hearing the full tale of how I battled to obtain MPs’ expenses.
Public relations: bad for our health
Sep 10, 2009 Freedom of Information, Health 8 Comments
I’ve been making a number of FOI requests as part of the research for my book. One of the responses from the Department of Health was picked up by Tony Collins at Computer Weekly who writes an excellent blog and has probably saved the taxpayer many tens of millions of pounds by his inquisitive digging into government IT projects.
The FOI shows that the Department of Health has increased the number of its press officers (telling us what they department wants us to know) from 26 in 2006/7 to 31 in 2008/9. During the same period the number of FOI officers (what we actually want to know) was just 8. There is also a stark divide between resources with around £3 million spent on press relations and marking but just £300,000 on freedom of information.
A breakdown of the total publicity and advertising budget reveals:
- 2008-09 = 62.6
- 2007-08 = 50.3
- 2006-07 = 40.7
Financial Year Actual Spend £ million)
But as Tony Collins says, that’s only part of the story. That doesn’t include money spent by NHS Connecting for Health on PR firms such as Porter Novelli, Fishburn Hedges, Good Relations and its parent Bell Pottinger.
We’re not an informed electorate if we can’t access the raw information. Too much public money is being spent selling policies as if they’re products and not enough goes into giving us the information we need to make informed decisions about important (and costly) public services.
Public inquiry details ‘potentially defamatory’ statements
Aug 28, 2009 FOI in Parliament, Freedom of Information 6 Comments
I received a letter today from the Committee on Standards in Public Life. Very nice people but sadly lacking the boldness to stand up to their lawyers. I’ve re-published my statement below along with the requested censoring so you can see exactly how little free speech we have in this country.
All requested ‘redactions’ are already in the public domain: Keith Vaz’s wheelie bin bill and train tickets are published on parliament’s own website along with Ann Widdecombe’s train ticket. The facts about Derek Conway and Michael Trend are widely published and appear in parliamentary reports and debate. If I’m missing something do let me know but otherwise this seems perfectly outrageous and I will not be agreeing to the requested censoring. And you thought Soviet Russia was bad.
Dear Ms Brooke,
Further to our telephone conversation yesterday, please see the list of suggested redactions below. When would be a good time to call you to discuss?
· On the second page, in the second paragraph redact from “That is how” to “Derek Conway”.· On the second page, in the third paragraph redact the sentence “we do not know the full motivation of the person who exposed Derek Conway.”
· On the third page, in the paragraph under the heading “Reaction of travel information” redact from “Keith Vaz” to “based on reality”. Then redact from “it was precisely” to “blackout” at the end of the paragraph. [DN: This means redacting most of the paragraph, but leaves the basic point that redacting information on direction of travel makes it difficult for the public / media to scrutinise expense claims]
· On the third page under the heading “publish addresses” redact from “Keith Vaz” to “blocked toilet etc”.
· on the last page in the first paragraph redact from “when I heard” to “to view these receipts”.
Ruth Alaile
Secretary to the Committee on Standards in Public Life
