Ministerial diaries to be open to scrutiny

MINISTERS could be forced to reveal details of ministerial diaries after the Government failed in a bid to block disclosure of a diary kept by Andrew Lansley, a former Tory health secretary.

The case marks the first time the courts have considered the public right to see entries in a ministerial diary under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Transparency campaigners say the case is of importance because the diary covers the time Mr Lansley was working on the Health and Social Care Act and allegedly subjected to extensive lobbying by private healthcare interests. A journalist, Simon Lewis, made a request to the Department of Health under the Freedom of Information Act to see diary contents for the period May 12, 2010 to April 30, 2011.

A redacted version was produced, but in March 2013 the Information Commissioner required the department to disclose the majority of the withheld information.

The Government has lost a series of legal challenges, ending in a unanimous threejudge ruling yesterday.

Sir Terence Etherton, Master of the Rolls, said there were “11 particular types of benefit” from disclosing the information, including “general value of openness” and “transparency in public administration”.