House of Commons
- Date 16 May 2024
- Sector Central government
- Decision(s) FOI 36: Not upheld
The complainant has requested information concerning MPs’ pass data. The Commissioner’s decision is that the House of Commons was entitled to rely on section 36 to withhold the requested information.
Post the issuing of the Decision Notice, the House of Commons advised the Commissioner (regarding paragraph 9 of the Decision Notice) as follows.
“I can confirm that, in accordance with our usual process, before responding to the request we sought the opinion of the Speaker of the House of Commons about whether to apply the specific limb of the exemption in section 36 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) to the information in this case. We made our submission to the Speaker on 18 September 2023 and the Speaker’s Secretary confirmed the Speaker’s decision to apply the exemption on 19 September 2023.
…
When asking for the Speaker’s reasonable opinion, the information itself is provided to him and, on some occasions, a meeting is held to discuss issues or questions. On this occasion, the decision was made using the written papers only.
Upon receiving a request for an internal review, and in accordance with our usual process, I can confirm that we again sought the opinion of the Speaker in this case. A further submission and the relevant information were sent from the Office of Speaker’s Counsel on 16 November 2023. The Speaker’s Secretary confirmed that the Speaker’s decision was to confirm the exemption under s.36 FOIA on 20 November 2023”.