Tag Archives: government

Rishi Sunak’s retreat on climate policies is troubling

Last week UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced the scrapping and watering down of several key climate targets. Academics Dr Pam Yeow, Reader in Management and Dr Becky Briant, Reader in Quaternary Science, share their thoughts in a blog. 

Planet Earth

We read with disappointment and concern the latest announcement from the UK Prime Minister, of the intentions to roll back climate positive strategies and priorities until 2035. This is unfortunate for both scientific and economic reasons. 

Over the past decade it has become increasingly clear that the impacts from climate change are being experienced at lower levels of change than previously projected. Most climate mitigation policies propose to keep warming below 2 degrees centigrade beyond pre-industrial averages and yet at current levels of warming (only 1.2 degrees), we are already seeing extreme weather events on an annual basis, from the wildfires that started in Canada in June and are still alight, to extreme heatwaves and wildfires in southern Europe and the Middle East this July, to significant hurricane disruption in the US in August, to multiple floods and landslides just this month, for example in Libya and Hong Kong. The facts of climate change don’t stop being facts when we choose to ignore them. 

Similar thresholds are being crossed in all areas of environmental degradation, with the reporting this month that six of the nine ‘planetary boundaries’ identified back in 2009 as ‘guard-rails’ beyond which humanity should not go if we want to live on a habitable planet have been crossed, meaning that Earth is now significantly outside of the safe operating space for humanity. For example, the disposability of single-use plastics, once hailed as a symbol of modernity with its low cost, convenience and durability has resulted in significant social and environmental concerns such as low recyclability rates and large volumes entering landfills and marine-based environments, leading to health concerns. Action is needed across the board to ensure our planet remains habitable; also to avoid the extreme costs associated with both clearing up and rebuilding after extreme weather events and taking care of those whose health has been damaged by the degradation of our environment. The issues involved are so intertwined that action on one will increase the likelihood of success on another. 

Globally, the only way to avoid the worst climate change scenarios is for all countries in the world to reach net zero emissions by 2050 and then to move to negative emissions. Reaching net zero by 2050 requires such a steep emissions reduction that emissions need to halve by 2030 in order to reach it, in what the United Nations (UN) have called ‘the decisive decade’. The UK’s previous policy commitments were barely able to bring the UK economy to net zero by 2050 anyway, but last week’s announcements move us even further away from success. Furthermore, given that the requirement is global and many countries are moving much more slowly to action, the UK has an ethical obligation as an early and substantial historical emitter to double down on climate action, not roll back. 

These announcements are particularly troubling because we had not so long ago led the field in taking environmental action, with the first statutory commitments in the 2008 Climate Change Act and a raft of strategies and policies over the last decade that addressed many, if not all, of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in addition to straight emission reduction commitments. For single use plastic waste for example, in 2017, the UN adopted an additional resolution in relation to SDG 14 (Life Below Water) that included an agreement to implement long-term and robust strategies to reduce the use of single-use plastics and microplastics (UN General Assembly, 2017). In 2022, a UN resolution was drafted to end plastics pollution. Meanwhile, the UK, alongside the EU, introduced similar measures around single-use plastics, including a 5p carrier bag charge which increased to 10p in 2021, and a ban on single use plastic items that included plates, trays, bowls, cutlery and food containers from October 2023. A plastic packaging tax generated £276 million in the first year of introduction (2023) and there were other consultations that took place, regarding the introduction of deposit return schemes in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.  

More industries than ever have now come aboard and engaged with the sustainability agenda, giving hope that concerted action might be possible. Many voluntary initiatives were introduced and taken on by organisations like the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation which introduced concepts like the plastic circular economy and the encouragement of a reduction alongside recycling and reusing. The UK Plastics Pact have some of the world’s largest packaging producers, brands, retailers and NGOs signed up to a shared vision with targets of eliminating ‘problem’ plastics, increase the use of reusable or recyclable plastics and achieving 30% average recycled plastic in items (WRAP, 2022). Similarly, many companies have signed up to the UN’s ‘Race to Zero’. 

The UK government needs to recognise that environmental action and economic health are not mutually exclusive. We need a systemic framework of engagement, involving global, national and local groups, which occurs in the context of cross-party consensus and does not change. In addition to the environmental harm caused, chopping and changing government policy kills jobs and future investment. After the shock announcement this week, the car industry reacted furiously as they had agreed as an industry to work towards more environmentally friendly automobiles, contributing to an infrastructure of electric charging network as well as better performing fully electric vehicles. Other global leaders have also reacted with dismay at this turnaround and have urged the UK government to reconsider.  

We are clear that negative climate changes and environmental degradation are already taking place. It is imperative that governments work in tandem with industry, local governments and citizens towards priorities and strategies that help our planet thrive. We urge the UK government to take the lead again in creating opportunities for a greener planet and healthier and happier citizens.  

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Prime Minister Truss or Sunak and the Curse of the Takeover Prime Minister

Dr Ben Worthy, Director of the MSc in Government, Policy and Politics, shares his analysis on the prospects and promises of the candidates in the running to be the next Conservative Party leader.   

One thing we can say for certain is that our next Prime Minister, whether Truss or Sunak, will be a takeover leader. This means that they get to Downing Street through internal party procedures rather than a general election. But is there a curse for ‘takeover’ Prime Ministers 

Most Prime Ministers who take over from another leader rather than win an election have short, unhappy times in office. To give you a flavour, here’s the list of post-war takeovers: 

  • Anthony Eden (1955–57) 
  • Harold Macmillan (1957–63) 
  • Alec Douglas-Home (1963–64) 
  • James Callaghan (1976–79) 
  • John Major (1990–97) 
  • Gordon Brown (2007–10) 
  • Theresa May (2016–2019) 
  • Boris Johnson (2019-2022) 

With probably one exception, this is not a list of successful or happy Prime Ministers. In fact, it looks pretty much like a list of failed leaders, with at least one name that should make you shout ‘who?’ As you can see, most didn’t spend long in Downing Street and most struggled to get past the three-year mark, with only Macmillan and Major as exceptions.  

So why is it cursed? It’s partly because a leader ‘taking over’ doesn’t get the ‘bounce’ or legitimacy from winning an election. It’s also because the reason you are there. A takeover is because there’s been some sort of crisis, normally one that was big or severe enough to make your predecessor resign. This means that often, you inherit a crisis and a divided party. Prime Minister Sunak or Truss will lead a party divided over the economy, and the rather poisonous legacy of Boris Johnson. The leadership debates seem to be making it worse, as some Conservatives have made clear 

As well as the curse, our new Prime Minister faces huge challenges and expectations. As has been clear in the debates so far, the public expect the Prime Minister to do something about the many crises that are facing the UK, from the cost of living and inflation to the buckling of public services and threat of climate change which has appeared in our homes and on our doorsteps in a way that makes it hard to deny. On top of this there is Covid, which has not gone away, and Brexit, which is continuing to cause ruptures everywhere from Dover to Belfast. You can see an expert analysis by Full Fact, which looks at whether the candidates’ pledges will solve the problems we face. 

Conservative MPs and members have another, even higher hope, which is that the new leader can win an election. The UK must dissolve Parliament for a General Election by 17 December 2024 at the very latest, though the new Prime Minister can call one any time before, thanks to Johnson abolishing the Fixed Term Parliament Act. This power is not to be sniffed at, and can be worth 5 points in an election 

But for a takeover Prime Minister to win an election is a tall order. Boris Johnson did, of course, in 2019 and John Major did in 1992. Before that it was Harold Macmillan, way back in 1959, when he famously told a heckler “you’ve never had it so good” (a phrase Liz Truss has repeated).  

The numbers seem against our new PM repeating this trick, as neither Truss or Sunak are polling well. As of July 2022, Labour hold an 11 point lead over the Conservative party. Although Sunak has flagged up a YouGov poll showing he has the ‘edge’ over Truss in attracting swing voters, it’s only a 2 point difference, and both are rather far behind Keir Starmer. As YouGov explains “neither can be characterised as popular.” This is made worse by the fierce leadership debates, which have handed Labour large amounts of pledges and quotes to use back at whoever wins.  

Hovering in the background is the fact that both Truss and Sunak were major figures in Johnson’s government and are connected to his reputation and legacy. Truss described herself as a Johnson ‘loyalist’ while Sunak was fined for attending a ‘Partygate’ party. To my disappointment, but not my surprise, both candidates have vowed to continue Johnson’s bizarre immigration policy, which was condemned by the UN Refugee agency.  Both leaders could find a sulking Johnson could do a great deal of damage to them, whether on the backbenches or back writing newspaper columns.  

So, what can they do? Takeovers can succeed by pretending to be different, and representing a new start, as John Major did after Thatcher in 1990. But with little money and room for manoeuvre, what else can they do? 

One option is to go for eye catching policies. Truss has committed to a new law against Street Harassment (which, conveniently, Johnson rejected), while Sunak has called to make similar activities illegal and promised a women’s manifesto.  

Another option is to do something to create distance from their predecessor. As the Full Fact report points out, “one of the defining legacies of Boris Johnson’s premiership has been its bulldozing of political trust and erosion of citizens’ faith in democratic politics and politicians.” This YouGov poll of Conservative members found “honest/integrity” to be the two most desirable traits in their new leader.  

My guess is they’ll opt for some sort of transparency, which can actually help create a sense of newness and distance at the same time. Governments often promise openness to show they are ‘better’ than whoever went before. Tony Blair offered a Freedom of Information Act in 1997 and David Cameron, all sorts of ‘open data’ on government spending. It could be something relatively small. Truss has already suggested new data on police performance and both leaders have promised to publish their own tax returns. They could promise to open up ministerial diaries, something, conveniently, Boris Johnson has refused to do. In an effort to seem less corrupt, and clean the system, they could publish more systematic data about lobbying or Ministers’ or MPs’ interests. The new Prime Minister could even commit to a new ethics regime, or embrace an inquiry, perhaps even borrowing Labour’s idea for a new ‘super watchdog’ Ethics and Integrity Commission to watch over lobbying and Ministers interests. 

This could create distance and be a symbol they’ll be ‘different’… but it won’t be enough to stop the curse 

References:  

Worthy, B. (2016). Ending in failure? The performance of ‘takeover’ prime ministers 1916–2016. The Political Quarterly, 87(4), 509-517. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1467-923X.12311  

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The missed opportunity of the National Food Strategy

Dr Jason Edwards, Lecturer in the Department of Politics, shares his opinion on the National Food Strategy, a report released last week. It’s the first independent review of England’s entire food system for 75 years, and it makes recommendations for the government, which has promised to respond formally within six months.

The publication of the much-heralded independent review of the National Food Strategy – the so-called ‘Dimbleby Report’, named after its author, the food entrepreneur and writer Henry Dimbleby – marks an important moment for food policy and politics.

The report is divided into a consideration of the effects of the food system on health and the environment. The health question is centred on the problem of what Dimbleby calls the ‘Junk Food Cycle’. He sees it as a central failure of the food system, promoting a poor diet with disastrous consequences for public health, in particular the epidemic of obesity and type 2 diabetes. The cycle begins with our appetites for highly calorific food being preyed upon by the junk food industry, which churns out ultra-processed foods containing very high levels of sugar, salt, and fat. Market competition means that any reduction in the levels of these (unconsciously) desired ingredients in food products would lead to loss, and so food production companies have become involved in an arms race resulting in the proliferation of junk food. The more this junk food becomes embedded in the culture, the more it has increased appetites for it, both physiologically and psychologically.

Dimbleby’s solution is to break the cycle by imposing a wholesale tax of £3 per kilo on sugar and £6 per kilo on salt. The report headlines this proposal, and it has been the main focus of the media coverage. But the immediate response of the government to the idea of a sugar and salt tax has been, at best, lukewarm. That seems like an anticipation of the picking apart of the report’s proposals by corporate lobbyists that will inevitably come.

Dimbleby is probably right that the imposition of these taxes would have the desirable effect of reducing the consumption of foods harmful to human health. But the issue is with the whole approach of the report and how likely it is to secure the kind of policy changes required to deal with the deep-seated problems that Dimbleby rightly attributes to systemic features of food production and consumption. These problems cannot be resolved without raising questions about power, ownership, and control in the food system, yet Dimbleby skirts over these.

Dimbleby rejects the belief in de-regulated food markets that occupies the Conservative backbenches and some of the chairs at Cabinet. Nonetheless, he does not escape from the market’s view of food as at base a commodity designed to satisfy the biological appetites of the consumer. Here it is clear that Dimbleby has fallen under the spell of the Behavioural Insights team, popularly known as the ‘Nudge Unit’, established in the Cabinet Office in 2010 to apply behavioural science to public policy. What they are reasonably good at is predicting behaviour where a simple and clear instrumental choice is on offer. But, as the COVID-19 pandemic has shown, when it comes to patterns of activity that involve complex, strategic choices with unclear outcomes, they are at sea. Diet is such a pattern of activity, not a set of discrete instrumental choices. It does not boil down to the selections we make at the snacks shelf in the supermarket or the counter at Leon.

Dimbleby is right to argue that we should be wary of solutions to food inequality and poor diet that shift the responsibility to the individual, emphasising personal food knowledge, cooking skills, or commitment to exercise (which has little impact on weight loss anyway). This leaves the door open to those who all-too eagerly and loudly blame the poor for their poverty. But raising questions about how people could and would act under very different conditions of choice is neither to individualise responsibility nor to renounce the necessarily systemic setting of our food choices. The failure to pose these questions is the principal disappointment of the report. To be fair, it does make a number of recommendations about changing the circumstances in which we make our food choices, such as the Eat and Learn initiative for schools that encourages food education from early years. But more generally there is silence in the report on questions of citizen involvement in the food system. At a time when local councils are selling off allotment sites to fund ‘essential’ local services, there isn’t a single mention of the availability of land for small horticulture, funding for cooperative local food-growing schemes, or the provision of public spaces for common cooking and eating. In short, on these crucial questions of food citizenship, Dimbleby simply has nothing to say. The report needed to question the very foundations of the food system: far from doing this, it merely asks for a reformulation of its parts.

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Back to normal? The government is underestimating the scale of change for workers.

As the UK government looks for a path out of lockdown, Professor Almuth McDowall considers the psychological impact of transitioning to a new normal.

Picture of people waiting for the tube in London

On Sunday afternoon, we were on our way back from a socially distanced walk with three moderately enthusiastic teenagers when the phone rang. BBC Radio London asked if I was happy to discuss the Transport Secretary’s announcement that the government was considering a phased approach to businesses reopening their doors. The suggestion is to put a number of safety measures in place to safeguard individuals from getting infected, but also minimise pressures on transport and infrastructure.

For employers, the key propositions are to minimise the number of workers using any equipment, to stagger work start and finish times and to maximise home working. The idea is also to encourage people to engage in more active commuting, including cycling and walking.

Many organisations have of course been open and operational throughout the crisis, including our now much appreciated local shops, which have introduced social distancing measures such as limiting numbers allowed in at a time and protective screens.

But will the transition back to the workplace be as easy as some might suggest while extra precautionary measures are implemented?

When quizzed on the radio, I took a rather cautious and even cynical view. Quite frankly, I do not think that the implications of what will be a gigantic organisational change exercise have been properly thought through.

First, let’s think about infrastructure constraints. Many returning workers have children who, we hope, will return to normal nursery and/or school hours sometime soon. This would make it difficult for all workers to shift start and finish times, as there will be practical issues such as school pick up times to work around. Transport will also be a challenge for this reason, given that peak demand is also due to children travelling to and from school. 

Furthermore, not everyone lives in cycling or walking distance from their place of work, quite the contrary. Surely, we also must avoid a scenario where more people are taking to their cars and driving alone, as we are already witnessing in our neighbourhood, to avoid public transport. 

Let’s also think about who will and needs to return to work. There will be workers who are scared about returning. There are also people who will not be able to return, at least not for the foreseeable future, because they are vulnerable, or someone in their family is. 

On the other hand, there are people who are desperate to return, because they currently live and work in crammed conditions, or because they live in areas with insufficient connectivity.  

Each business has to start with a detailed analysis of how a phased return to a mix of onsite and virtual working will play out in practice and accommodate individual needs and preferences. This is not a quick solution, but takes time, skill and effort. 

Research tells us that to make virtual working effective, particularly during times of crisis and uncertainty, managers and leaders need to take an individual approach to help people feel secure and build up trust and effective ways of working. Again, this is no quick fix. 

Some organisations are getting this intuitively right, others not exactly. One of the keys is a combination of communication and clarification of expectations and roles. This will become much harder as businesses are required to adjust and manage a staged transition to open their doors again. If we are not careful, businesses will spend all their energies on managing logistics, rather than concentrating on the core business to keep their customers happy and deliver a good service.

The literature on organisational change firmly agrees on one issue. Change is hard and stressful, even where it is for the better. Humans are hardwired not to like it. This is why times are tough at the moment. Acknowledging this, and our own vulnerability is an important step to manage sustainable change. My fear is that the UK government is considering too complex a range of practical measures without due acknowledgement of the physiological impact on people. It’s time for a rethink.

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Introducing Birkbeck’s MSc in Governance, Economics and Public Policy

Sue Konzelmann, Programme Director, shares the rationale behind this interdisciplinary Master’s.

When, as in 2015, one group of economists publicly support proposed new economic policies in the press – immediately resulting in another set of economists reaching for their word processors with an entirely opposing view – it’s a pretty fair bet that the ensuing debate will be at least as much about politics as economics.

Nor is this anything new; John Maynard Keynes and Friedrich Von Hayek routinely traded blows in a similar public way between the two World Wars, influencing politicians and governments of very different shades in the process.

You might think that you’d be on firmer ground with corporate governance and its more legally based rules. That is, until you remind yourself that those rules are also largely set by government – and that the views of Clement Attlee’s 1945 socialist government and Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government less than forty years later would have been as wildly opposed on corporate governance as they were on pretty much everything else. Whilst Attlee’s government was part of what is (yes, you’ve guessed it) debatably described as the “Keynesian consensus”, Thatcher’s handbag was famously home to Von Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom.

However, in spite of these three subjects – economics, politics and corporate governance – being inextricably linked, they are usually taught separately, an approach which inevitably loses much of the richness of what is, after all, a game that anyone wanting to influence public policy will have to learn to play.

There is, of course, no rule book to follow. Such rules as there are, may be rewritten at any point in time, and for a variety of reasons – but that’s what allows policy to evolve in response to a changing world, changing conventional wisdom or changing politics. It’s a heady mix.

Birkbeck’s new MSc in Governance, Economics and Public Policy not only shows how each of these areas influences – and is, in turn, influenced by – the others; it also sets them into their academic context and relates them to real world events and outcomes.

Although the course was initiated at the suggestion of the Progressive Economy Forum, which has strong links to one of the two opposing groups of economists already mentioned, the course will be taught by colleagues from three of Birkbeck’s world leading Departments – Management, Economics and Politics – with a wide variety of perspectives.

I anticipate that there will be some lively discussions with and amongst the students as well. As a result, one of the first rules to go out of the window, will probably turn out to be the one about never discussing politics in a pub!

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What is a vote of no confidence?

Dr Ben Worthy from Birkbeck’s Department of Politics explains why confidence is such an important part of being Prime Minister and what might happen when it’s no longer there.

Being prime minister is all about confidence. In fact, the British constitution is held together by confidence. Being, and staying, prime minister means you have to ‘command the confidence of the House of Commons’. You don’t have to have a majority (though that’s always nice) but you do need to able to get your votes through. The Cabinet Manual, which sets out the rules as to how government runs, states that:

The Prime Minister is the head of the Government and holds that position by virtue of his or her ability to command the confidence of the House of Commons, which in turn commands the confidence of the electorate, as expressed through a general election.

So to be thrown out without an election, you need to somehow lose that confidence.

The main way this can be done is if the opposition passes and wins a vote of no confidence. If a prime minister loses such a vote then, technically, they’ve lost the magic ‘confidence’ and something has to happen, whether their resignation or an election. So far, so simple. So, to illustrate, Jeremy Corbyn has said if May loses her vote on her crucial bill next week, Labour will immediately call for a vote of no confidence in the government.

The government can also do the opposite and call for a motion of confidence in itself. This makes a vote crucial, and was a way of making sure it’s MPs supported them. This is a good discipline device and has been used by ‘prime ministers down the ages to keep their backbenchers in line and say that “this vote really matters”’. John Major famously did it over Maastricht, as a way of saying to his party: ’support me or we lose power’. Neither of these, by the way, should be confused with a party vote against its leader, of the type that fizzled out against May recently.

So far, so simple (ish). So why aren’t both sides throwing around confidence or no confidence motions every few months when things get sticky? One reason is that they are seen as a weapon of last resort. Another is that to win a vote you need the numbers, obeying Lyndon Johnson’s first rule of politics to ‘learn how to count’. Politically, you shouldn’t call one unless you are pretty sure you can win. So Labour can call for a vote of no confidence but whether they have the numbers to pass one is another matter.

Most importantly, do they work? Well, sometimes. The last successful no confidence vote was in 1979, which led to the end of James Callaghan’s government (the government lost by one vote, legend has it because one MP was in the pub and didn’t get back to the House of Commons in time). Before that you have to go back to 1924 when the first ever Labour Prime Minister, Birkbeck’s own Ramsay MacDonald, was forced out by one.

Then things get more complicated. The Fixed Term Parliament Act has limited how no confidence votes can be called. It also means that if a government loses a vote there is 14 days before another, after which an election is called if that’s lost too.

So, If May loses a Labour confidence, let’s say next Wednesday, what happens then? The next 14 days could be very messy and confusing. Probably she would resign as Prime Minister, though she could stay as a caretaker leader. Another possibility is that someone gets an early Christmas present, and steps in as a temporary Tory PM to cobble together enough support to carry on.  Where would Labour stand in all of this, and should Corbyn get a chance? Because the rules aren’t set, no one is quite sure. A week is a long time in politics. Two weeks could be even longer. Catherine Haddon, who you should follow on twitter, is best placed to explain all the scenarios.

So one outcome of the next few days could be a vote of confidence. Yet no one knows, with any confidence, what would happen next if it’s lost. And all the time, the clock is ticking on Brexit.

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Used or abused? 10 serious issues raised by FoI requests

Dr Ben WorthyThis article was contributed by Dr Ben Worthy. It was originally published on The Conversation.

A Freedom of Information request lodged on a quiet news day by a journalist has revealed that more than 800 police officers in England and Wales have been investigated for breaching social media guidelines over the past five years.

Quite apart from showing us that the police, like many other public bodies, find it difficult to control what its members do on Twitter, the story raises the importance of the Freedom of Information Act, which comes under regular fire for, according to the prime minister, David Cameron: “furring up the arteries” of government.

The Local Government Association recently published a list of ten “silly” FoI requests. While not arguing that all such requests are like this, the implied point is that FoI is being “abused”.

This complaint mirrors the comments of Tony Blair in his memoirs:

The truth is that the FoI Act isn’t used, for the most part, by ‘the people’. It’s used by journalists. For political leaders, it’s like saying to someone who is hitting you over the head with a stick: ‘Hey, try this instead’ and handing them a mallet. The information is neither sought because the journalist is curious to know, nor given to bestow knowledge on ‘the people’. It’s used as a weapon.

It also fits with concerns from a stream of other ministers and officials that FoI stops records being created and hampers decision-making. It is likely to feed into the recent government announcement of a consultation on whether the act is, indeed, being abused.

Little is known about FoI requesters. The pattern appears to be broadly that a variety of people and groups use it for a whole variety of reasons. Most FoI requests go to local government, the largest user group (contrary to Blair’s claim) are the public and, high-profile cases aside, many use FoI for “micro-political” issues, such as dealing with a pothole or planning application.

As a response to the list, I’d like to offer my own list of ten serious issues revealed by FOI requests.

  1. Extraordinary rendition – the UK’s involvement was revealed by FoI requests from the All-Party Group.
  2. Details of the Universal Credit welfare reforms.
  3. The Libor banking scandal and knowledge of it.
  4. Lists of visitors to the prime ministerial residence at Chequers (and ministerial meetings and diaries now proactively released).
  5. The use (and, it turned out, abuse) of passes to parliament.
  6. Creation of the famous “Weapons of Mass Destruction” dossier.
  7. The monarch’s involvement in vetoing legislation.
  8. The results of local restaurant hygiene inspections that helped create http://www.scoresonthedoors.org.uk/.
  9. The salaries of senior academics and NHS officials.
  10. The planned closure of local libraries up and down the country.

Keeping them honest

Underneath these high-profile cases, our research found a steady stream of accountability stories over planning, car parking and many other issues – just see David Higgerson’s FOI Friday.

The act also helped create IPSA, which regulate MPs’ expenses, led to a change in the law so all members of the House of Lords pay tax in the UK and drove the regular publishing of local government salaries.

This not to say there aren’t “silly” requests, from dragons to zombie attacks (though “silly” is subjective as Jonathan Baines explains, many corruption scandals have been triggered by apparently pointless questions or the piecing together of small bits of information).

Nor is it to claim the act is not taken advantage of – in the UK, and even more in the US, FoI has led to heavy use by business – see this particularly controversial case in Scotland with Phillip Morris seeking access to details of a study of underage smoking.

Yet such requests represent only a minority of the estimated 253,000 requests per year (my own estimates based on the most recent figures for numbers of local government requests in 2010 (192,000) plus the number of requests to central government in 2013 (53,000). On the whole, research indicates that FoI is composed of all sorts of questions, on all sorts of topics, sent in by all sorts of people and groups.

It is this unpredictability that helps make it effective. One local politician told me: “you never know what you will get asked”. The presence of FoI, the possibility of a question, can make someone think twice and even deter them from corrupt or inappropriate behaviour.

There is also an issue of democratic principle. The right to information, championed by radicals such as the Levellers and Diggers centuries ago, means the right to ask questions (to misquote Orwell on liberty) that the powerful may not want you to ask.

It is a democratic right to ask and this may mean some silliness – just as voting may mean non-voting or “silly” voting. Like all parts of a democracy, it is messy and unpredictable and can occasionally go wrong. But in its messiness and unpredictability lies its power.

The Conversation

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