Sir Cover-Up: We must curb freedom law

thE most senior civil servant has argued for new restrictions on a law used to expose government waste and incompetence.

Cabinet secretary sir Jeremy heywood claimed the Freedom of Information act was making officials ‘ less candid’ with ministers in their advice – f or f ear it would be made public.

sir Jeremy was nicknamed ‘sir Cover-Up’ for his role in blocking the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq War from seeing letters and records of phone calls between tony Blair and george Bush.

Yesterday he argued there were ‘one or two issues’ with the FoI law, which helped expose the MPs’ expenses scandals and dozens of other revelations about the activities of the state.

sir Jeremy also told MPs he had concerns about whether the veto power of ministers to block the publication of information worked.

a panel including former ministers and civil servants is to review the act. sir Jeremy said those on the panel were ‘independent’. But Maurice Frankel, director of the Campaign for Freedom of Information, said: ‘Independent normally means open minded. People who have indicated their views publicly on every single issue before the commission aren’t open minded.

‘they have come to people who have served i n government whose interests are very clearly those of the government.’ the review’s terms of reference include the question of whether the act is a burden on public authorities, raising fears that ministers will make it easier for councils, quangos and government departments to reject requests.

the commission, chaired by former treasury mandarin Lord Burns, will look at creating more ‘safe space’ within the law to protect the advice given to min- isters by civil servants. sir Jeremy told the Commons Public administration and Constitutional affairs Committee that ‘by and large’ the law worked well.

But he added: ‘there have been one or two areas – particularly where we are talking about speaking truth unto power in relation to projects, for example, or the risks of certain activities – where the fear that that might then be published within a year or so, I think, probably would lead people to be less candid in writing than they otherwise would.

‘also, there are some questions around the process by which the veto is used. Parliament has intended there to be a perfectly workable veto and that is proving increasingly difficult to use in practice.’

the long- delayed Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq War has repeatedly refused offers of extra resources to try to speed it up, sir Jeremy told MPs.

the inquiry started in July 2009 but is not expected to report until next year. David Cameron has said he is ‘fast losing patience’ over the lack of progress.

‘Making people

less candid’