Freedom of Information

Debate between Baroness Neville-Rolfe and Lord Clark of Windermere

Tuesday 23rd January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

It is a good question. I do not have a figure; I have explained that freedom of information is a duty across nearly 100,000 public authorities, because we are not only talking about central government today but schools, the NHS, local authorities and even some publicly owned organisations, so individual costs will be borne by individual departments. In the Cabinet Office, there is also a dedicated unit, because we are responsible overall for the Act, which is why I am answering Questions. But a lot of freedom of information requests are actually dealt with by civil servants as part of their day-to-day job, because they have to comment on where there are policy issues or advice to Ministers that it would be difficult to make available. Obviously, as the Minister, I try to encourage them to make things available wherever possible under the Act.

[Lord Clark of Windermere (Lab)]

My Lords, I was pleased to hear the Minister say that she supported freedom of information. Will she continue to shout that loud and clear? I was the author of the original White Paper, and we made the point that unless our constituents and electors have knowledge, there cannot be democracy. I hope she will make that point loud and clear.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I support the noble Lord. I think this was probably his approach when he conceived the legislation, which is not entirely easy because of the burdens. You have to have a balance between letting sunlight in wherever we can by making things available—not using them as an excuse for cover-ups; we have perhaps had too many of those historically—and keeping secret private advice to Ministers so that they can take decisions in an objective fashion, consider options that are not always welcome and come to the right conclusions. I think that is very important, and I speak as someone who, strangely, has been both a civil servant and a Minister.

Covid-19 Inquiry

Debate between Baroness Neville-Rolfe and Lord Clark of Windermere

Thursday 8th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I agree with the noble Lord about the possibility of an accommodation being reached. We have had discussions with the inquiry to bridge the gap between sincerely held views. However, we have also requested that any judicial review is held expeditiously, and we are very glad that the court has agreed to deal with this before the end of June. In the meantime—and I cannot emphasise this more strongly—every day more material is being sent into the inquiry and the large teams working on this important matter are co-operating.

[Lord Clark of Windermere (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister guarantee that the inquiry will be provided with the figures outlining the serious loss of personnel in the NHS, which is causing serious problems in the cancer field, as we have heard about today, and which have occurred over the period that it is investigating?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I assure the noble Lord that anything that is Covid related is being made available to the inquiry, subject to some security points. The impact of the Covid measures on the wider NHS and health is a matter for the chair but is inherently relevant.

Sharing Economy

Debate between Baroness Neville-Rolfe and Lord Clark of Windermere

Monday 17th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

Part of the process of developing the industrial strategy is of course to bring in information from other departments on how major changes in the economy are affecting them. One of the things that we ensure when consulting business is that we always include the sharing economy element in those discussions. I will write to my noble friend about the hubs.

[Lord Clark of Windermere (Lab)]

My Lords, it is 60 years ago today that Britain became a world pioneer when Her Majesty the Queen opened the nuclear power station at Calder Hall. Nuclear power has plugged our energy gap for the past 60 years. When will the Government try to have some extra innovation and look at wave power so that we can plug the gap in the energy demands of the future?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

As the new Energy Minister, I have been struck by the range of opportunities in energy. On nuclear, we have made the decision to go ahead with Hinkley and a potential whole new generation of nuclear power stations. We are looking at all these other areas and we have innovation expenditure. We will be sharing our thoughts further in due course—for example, in the context of the contract for difference decisions that are due in the coming weeks.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Debate between Baroness Neville-Rolfe and Lord Clark of Windermere

Wednesday 5th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

My Lords, all that we are doing will help the UK to be at the forefront of this emerging sector and I very much like the examples that my noble friend has given. We are already investing £1 billion, matched by industry, in the Aerospace Technology Institute. Its latest £25 million competition is open to projects from a range of civil aerospace technologies, including the unmanned aircraft sector.

[Lord Clark of Windermere (Lab)]

My Lords, do the Minister and the Government fully accept that there is much use for unmanned vehicles in policing? Will she discuss with the various police authorities the possibility of them working together to provide some cover to give constant monitoring of sensitive sites in the fight against terrorism and in other issues such as emergencies? There is a tremendous opportunity for using drones. I trust that the Government are pursuing this and will encourage the police to work together on it.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

My Lords, I very much agree with the noble Lord that there is great potential in this area. For example, police searches for missing people can be helped enormously by this sort of technology. We are working with the police, the defence sector and with industry to take forward this important technology.