Author Archives: Alex Foster

Surprising turn of events reported in the Guardian:

Gordon Brown today retreated from plans to exempt MPs’ expenses from the Freedom of Information Act.

The surprise announcement made during prime ministers questions follows the collapse overnight of a bipartisan agreement between Brown and David Cameron, the Tory leader, to back a parliamentary order exempting MPs’ expenses from the act. The move came after he was challenged by a Tory backbencher over why he was in favour of keeping them secret.

It means that plans to issue 1.2m receipts for MPs’ expenses over the past three years are likely to go ahead within weeks.

The

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Last night, it was not clear if there was an organised Tory position on the emerging scandal concerning freedom of information and MPs’ expenses. Last week’s Guardian confided: “A Tory source said David Cameron was likely to encourage his MPs to abstain on Thursday”

The same Guardian article last week had Lib Dem Shadow Leader of the House David Heath saying, “his is not a matter for a whipped vote  I will certainly be recommending that colleagues vote against the proposal to exempt parliament.”

This morning, all change. “Tory frontbench and Lib Dems fight move to hide MPs’ expenses”, the

I said earlier on today that the Lib Dems have a tale to tell about combatting the current plan to exempt members of Parliament from freedom of information legislation in force across most of the rest of the public sector. The party has been fighting this particular battle since David Maclean’s 2006 bill won support from both Conservative and Labour members, and had tacit support from the Government in its unusually trouble-free passage through the parliamentary process.

Now the bill is back in the form of an Order, proposed by the Leader of the House, there can be …