Lord Lucas writes for ePolitix.com, ahead of his oral question in the House of Lords on the procedure used when departments refuse to answer written questions.
Peers asking questions in the House of Lords find themselves in a worse position than members of the public using the Freedom of Information Act.
The Freedom of Information Act keeps on surprising parliamentarians. It was a narrow squeak that it was enacted at all – a wonderful measure, promised in opposition, it only just got through in the first year of a new government. I have used it myself: it's slow, but conscientious and principled – a real asset for citizens.
I have also taken a close interest in home education, in the Badman Report, and in the bill now before the Commons, which sets out to demolish people's right to educate their own children. Part of the justification for the current bill is set out in its impact assessment, and is based on the contention (to my mind ridiculous) that eight per cent of home-educated children are receiving no education at all, while 20 per cent are receiving unsatisfactory education.
To discover what facts underlie these contentions, I have asked a series of written questions in the House of Lords. Written questions are a useful privilege: mostly you get sensible, at least partially helpful replies. The Department for Children, Schools and Families, however, has worked itself up into a state of maidenly outrage about home education, and in particular about the pungent views that home educators express of the DCSF, and about the number of questions home educators are asking it. One would have thought that the DCSF would have realised the consequences of heaving a brick at this particular beehive, and would be behaving in a more dignified manner.
As a result of their upset, the DCSF have resorted to giving me a series of fatuous answers to my questions, based on imaginary dangers to the public of releasing the information I have asked for. Had I asked my questions under the Freedom of Information Act, I could have taken the DCSF's answers to the Information Commissioner in the confident knowledge that he would bring the DCSF to book. As a parliamentarian, I find that I have to endure endless obfuscation and refusals, with no hope of achieving a full and honest answer.
So I shall be asking the leader of the House on Tuesday what she proposes to do to put us parliamentarians on a par with the rest of the nation.
