 The next item of business is a debate on motion 6126 in the name of Edward Mountain on freedom of information requests. Can I invite members who wish to speak to press requests to speak backwards, please? I call on Edward Mountain to speak true and move the motion up to eight minutes, please. Presiding Officer, until I bring this motion to the chamber on the issue of freedom of information. I would at the outset like to move the motion in my name. I started campaigning to become an MSP in 2010. One of the reasons I did so was because I felt like many others probably across this chamber and across Scotland that politicians seemed remote, unapproachable and secretive. Countering these traits remains one of my key drivers and that is what this debate is all about. On Tuesday 13 June this year, there was a member's debate on the freedom of information. On the lead-up to that debate, I did some research on the topic that I was speaking on, and I was shocked. When it came to speaking that debate, I found that I was sharing a platform with Neil Findlay and Andy Wightman, both of whom I probably shared a little political ground with. It was clear that, as the debate progressed, we shared a lot in common on the transparency of government. The critical freedom of information laws and the procedures in Scotland are based on the Freedom of Information Scotland Act 2002 and the Environmental Information Scotland Regulations 2004, both introduced to improve government transparency with the aim of setting strong standards. What we have heard from journalists across the political spectrum is that they have serious concerns about the way in which the Scottish Government is interpreting and implementing that legislation. I do not always believe what I see that journalists write, but in this case there is no smoke without fire. We have heard from them about their concerns regarding the freedom of information request, and some of the issues that they raise include delays beyond the 20-day working deadline, emails requesting updates being routinely ignored, officials delaying responses for so long that initial requests are answered only under internal review, and Scottish Government officials are taking control of requests from other government agencies without the consent of the applicant. I could go on. The member would like to comment on the article on the BBC's website earlier this week, which is titled, Fy failings at the heart of government. The report about the UK Government talks about delays as being unacceptable, extremely unhelpful, extremely protected, considerable, notable, unreasonable, unsatisfactory, excessive, prolonged and severe. We have accepted in the Scottish Government that we intend to improve our performance. I see no line from the UK Government accepting that it needs to improve its response. I love taking interventions on subjects such as this. It reminds me of when I was about eight years old and I was in the playground and I got criticised for doing something wrong. I ran to the teacher and said that it was not me, miss, it was them. This Government needs to stop doing that and needs to take responsibility and deal with the issues that they are dealing with. I will continue. In their open letter, the journalist explained that their experience raised concerns whether they were being treated and managed differently when it came to freedom of information. We all know as members in this Parliament when we raise tricky questions they are met often with smokescreen, mirrors and diffusion. Indeed, many find the temptation and I have to make freedom of information requests so wide-ranging that there is no way that the answers can be dissembled. Let us be honest, delays and withholding information are not acceptable and it is no surprise that former Scottish Information Commissioner, CIRC, Rosemary Agnew, ordered ministers to improve their performance. A position when it comes to freedom of information that I know Richard Lochhead agrees with and I am glad to see him in the chamber here. He is reported as saying that dithering and delays are unacceptable as they are for months and months that it takes Governments to respond to freedom of information. He made that comment about the UK Government and I made the comment about that. During this debate, I am sure that we will hear many examples of how this SNP-led Scottish Government avoids scrutiny. Meetings with no agendas and certainly no minutes, hiding behind thin veils of commercial confidentiality, to me that points to a code of secrecy, defending the indefensible and fuelling the lack of trust that the public have in politicians. Now, only a week ago, we heard rebuttal of these allegations from the Government. The Minister for Parliamentary Business provided a long list of statistics. In fact, Joe Fitzpatrick and his long and disjointed speech that even he wasn't allowed time to finish made some assertions which, according to my research, paints only half the picture. Assertion 1, the number of freedom of information requests of spite. Assertion 2, this Government achieved consistently better levels of response than the 61 per cent that was achieved under the last full year of the previous Administration. Assertion 3, the Scottish Government was better than the UK Government. Here it goes again. Let me answer those. There had been more freedom of information, but this Scottish Government, in 2016-17, has only answered 38 per cent of those in full, whereas in 2014-15, 46 per cent were answered in full, a clear draw. In 2016-17, 21 per cent of those answers were late, 21 per cent late. I am short of time unless I am… I can give you half a minute extra. Neil Findlay. I think that there is a correlation between garbage parliamentary answers and the spike in FOIs. Edward Mountain. Yes. Now, what is clear, as I was saying, is that its Government is truly good at, is spin, and they are not good to listening and telling the whole story. That Government, in response to this motion, made it clear that it accepted the criticism being raised against them but would try to mask their feelings by announcing that they would go further by publishing all responses to FOIs online. This debate, to me, proves that we, the Conservatives, are doing what we promise to do when we are elected. We are holding this Government to account. By their own admission, the SNP agrees that we need an independent inquiry and that we need post-legislative scrutiny. Let me assure those who are listening to this debate that we will keep a very BDI on this Government to make sure that they change the way they deal with FOIs. Why? Well, because this Government knows that it's wrong and that they know that they need to be more accountable. Let's be honest, in a mature and stable democracy, what they are doing is frankly indefensible, disingenuous way. They know that they're wrong and they can't hide it. We, this party, this Parliament and the press will hold the Government to account, and in future, they must be more honest, transparent and accountable. I look forward to hearing the evidence from other speakers this afternoon, and I hope that during the afternoon I might see some humility from this Government. Could you move the motion, please, Mr Mountain? Sorry, I thought that I'd moved it at the beginning, but I'm certainly... I don't think that you did. Oh, everybody's nodding away. I shall check the official report, but moving it twice is not a problem. I would never disagree with the Presiding Officer, and I move the motion. I now call on Jo FitzPatrick to speak to you and move amendment 6.1 to 6.1. Thank you, Presiding Officer. In moving amendment in my name, I'd like to thank Mr Mountain for giving us the opportunity to discuss how we might improve openness and transparency, but first I want to address our performance. Twelve years on, the statutory right to request information from a public authority and to be given it has been embedded in our culture. People understand their rights, and that has led to a steady increase in requests. FY requests are also becoming more complex, with the average FY response requiring seven hours of staff time. Although there might be some surprise that the Government is accepting the motion, anyone who has been listening to the debate will know that we accept that our recent performance has not been good enough and we are working to improve it. It's a pity that the UK Government, which has more civil service implications in Scotland than the Scottish Government, does not accept that it needs to improve its performance. However, that work to improve our performance is being undertaken in tandem with assessments of our performance by the Office of the Information Commissioner in effect on an on-going independent inquiry. The Information Commissioner is selected by a cross-party panel. It is independent of government and has always performed its performance without fear or favour. A new commissioner will be appointed by Parliament next week, and whoever is selected will no doubt want to continue that assessment to ensure that we are taking the steps to meet the standards that are expected of us. Neil Findlay could go with the minister claimed that he wanted to highlight the Government's achievements on transparency, claimed that he operated to the highest standards and were involved in the best practice. Today, in the amended motion, he will vote for that and that condemns his Government and, by dint of that, his own performance. Is this an outbreak of humility, or is it just a shambles? Joe FitzPatrick? If Mr Findlay had bothered to listen to anything that I said last week, then he would have heard me making that point last week. We are clear that our performance is not what it should be, and I was clear that our performance was not what it should be last week. We are in the process of trying to improve that. Before I cover the actions that we are taking to improve our performance, I want to address some of the concerns that have been set out recently by members of the media and the chamber. We do not get everything right, and I recognise that people have at times had reasons to be unhappy with our past performance. Firstly, as I have already said, we accept that our performance is not where it should be, and we are working to improve it. Secondly, it is important to recognise that the vast majority of requests are answered on time. When our response is late, officials will send a holding reply, where possible, giving an indication of when to expect our response. When that does not happen, it is clearly unacceptable, and that is one of the areas that we are working to improve. It is not in the interests of the Scottish Government to block or refuse requests on 10-year reasons or to miss a deadline, as has been suggested. Information can only be withheld for valid reasons, and the ultimate arbiter of that test is not the Scottish Government, it is the Scottish Information Commissioner whose decision is final. Public bodies handle their own individual requests. Any other practice would be a breach of the law. I am grateful to the minister for giving way on the point of responding to the concerns that were expressed in the journalist's letter earlier this month. One of those is that requests are being screened for potential political damage by special advisers. Is that true? Joe FitzPatrick? No, requests are all prepared by Scottish Government officials. Special advisers have a role in assessing draft responses for accuracy. As discussed in the chamber last week, I recognise the interests of the media in the operation of freedom of information legislation. As well as responding to the recent letter from members of the media, I will also be meeting with a national union of journalists to discuss those and other points and how we can use our improvement plans to build confidence in the FOI process. Turning now to the action that we are taking, we clearly need to ensure that we have appropriate resources in place to comply with our obligations. We are also taking steps to raise the profile of FOI through improved local management and staff training. We have set up an improvement project to examine different approaches to case handling. We need to acknowledge that the ever-increasing expectation is that information will be readily available without having to ask for it and at the click of a mouse. Proactive release is one way in which we have chosen to feed that hunger for information. Current publications include ministerial engagements, travelling expenses and detailed information on Scottish Government spending. We continue to look for opportunities for proactive release, so, in tandem with improving our FOI performance and as part of our continuing development of the Scottish Government website, I am taking steps to ensure that all information that is released in response to information requests is also published online from 3 July. Ensuring that information is published when it is released ensures that it is available to all without further requests and adds to transparency. That information will be available on the publication section of the Government's website at beta.gov.scot. That move, making information more readily accessible, is very much in line with the principles of open government. Our open government national action plan sets out several demanding commitments. Those include increased financial transparency, empowering communities to influence budget priorities and increasing citizen participation in local government. It is, of course, important that our legislation remains fit for purpose. We have regularly revised our FOI framework to ensure that it remains up-to-date. The 2013 amendment act improved legislation by strengthening the ability to prosecute and offence under FOISA and paved the way for lifespan exemptions to be reduced from 30 to 15 years. We have also brought within scope numerous organisations delivering public services, and members will no doubt be aware of our consultation on extending coverage to registered social landlords, which I expect to respond to in the autumn. On the point of scrutiny very quickly, clearly it is not for government to tell committees what scrutiny they wish to do, but if any committee decides to have scrutiny in this area, the information commissioners' outgoing report has some points that might be a good starting point for that. In conclusion, the Government believes in open government, and I move the amendment in my name and ask the Parliament to support it. I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate today following the motion that was raised for debate last week by my colleague Neil Findlay, where he highlighted some of the many concerns surrounding the Freedom of Information Act and the performance of the SNP Government. I would like to reiterate concerns raised in Mr Findlay's motion, namely that the application of the Freedom of Information Act by ministers and officials is questionable at best and that, worst, implies a culture and practice of secrecy and cover-up, including through routinely avoiding sharing information, often through not recording or taking minutes of meetings that are attended by ministers and senior civil servants. Speaking from experience, and I am sure many members across the chamber can agree that the responses to freedom of information requests from the Scottish Government have been relatively poor. As such, Labour supports the calls for an independent inquiry into the way that the Government deals with freedom of information requests and the potential to undertake post-legislate scrutiny of the Freedom of Information Act. In the interests of open government, and in particular full transparency of government, I hope today that the Government can recognise that it can do more when it comes to dealing with such requests under the act. The Government amendment today, in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick, which accepts the motion, recognising that the Scottish Government has had poor performance in this area, is, in my view, welcome, as is the commitment of the Government to publish all material released under freedom of information. However, I would say to Mr Fitzpatrick that he is stretching the imagination to then claim that this is a boost for open government. Personally, I think that he misses the point and most fair-minded people will see through that for what it is. There are many issues that must be addressed before we can seriously claim any boost in open government. As Neil Findlay pointed out in this chamber last week, just two weeks ago, 23 prominent journalists signed an open letter to this Parliament in which they raised very serious concerns about freedom of information requests and the way that they are being mishandled by the Scottish National Party Government. In outlining the details of the complaints from the 23 journalists, Mr Findlay called for a proper investigation into the issues being raised, and that is why Labour will support the motion today. As well as looking at how freedom of information requests are dealt with, the inquiry must also look at the level of information that is available. How can it be that Government ministers are meeting with quango chiefs, with business chiefs, with lobbyists discussing issues that have major implications for the people of Scotland and yet there is no record kept of such meetings? That is not right, and this Parliament must make clear that we expect to see openness and transparency in Government. It has also been suggested that the Scottish Government officials and special advisers are delaying answers or simply rejecting questions. The whole point of the freedom of information act should surely be to allow more openness and further transparency. It is not up to Government ministers or officials or special advisers to decide what is in the Government's interests to either disclose or not disclose. We also cannot ignore the fact that, at times, the responses to freedom of information requests seem more like they are dodging the questions than providing the answers. At its heart, freedom of information is about accountability, and this Government must recognise that across the chamber and outwith there is a cry for further accountability, more openness and more transparency. By committing to an independent inquiry, the Government will show that it is committed to reviewing some of the damage that it has done to the apparent, open and transparent image that it says it is committed to. Most important, Presiding Officer, there now needs to be change in the culture of how freedom of information requests are dealt with. The Government and the Parliament can show that we want openness and transparency in all that we do by supporting that motion today and, indeed, supporting the amendment from the SNP Government, which acknowledges its weaknesses and commits to addressing them. We now move to the open debate speeches of up to four minutes, please. Jamie Greene is to be followed by Stewart Stevenson. The third occasion marked today in as many weeks that we are discussing the Government's issue with transparency. We bring that to the chamber today, not just as Opposition parties, with our own concerns but also those of the public, journalists and many third parties. I am perhaps used to ministers here in this place engaging in the dark political art of avoiding to answer questions on important issues such as the Scottish economy, health waiting times, education standards, skills deficiencies, concerns over named person, Police Scotland, I could go on. In fact, anyone who sat here today during portfolio questions had to sit through a very painful 40 minutes of apologies, excuses and shurikurawooders from the front bench. The answer generally follows a pattern—it is usually deflection. It usually involves the words Tories, UK Government or Westminster. In fact, we have heard UK Government bingo played today already. You can brush us off in this place, but people outside of this chamber have had enough. People have an absolute right to ask robust questions of their Government, but not only that, get robust answers back. There is no anti-government conspiracy here today. Why? Because our criticisms are not in isolation. I was contacted yesterday by a constituent who regularly lodges FOIs to the Scottish Government across a wide range of topics—everything from asking about radiotherapy staff numbers to safety in sport. He forwarded me the responses that he has received and, frankly, he did not even remotely resemble an adequate response. We are having this conversation today because something has gone deeply wrong with the SNP's understanding of transparency. In today's Scotsman, they responded to my criticisms by saying, and I quote, Scotland has the most open and far-reaching freedom of information laws in the UK, perhaps, but having far-reaching laws is not the same as adhering to those laws. It is simply no defence. They then go on to say, We take our responsibility for FOIs seriously and, in the large majority of cases, we respond on time and in full. If that is the case, then why over 20 per cent of requests responded to light? That is more than double the naval national average. If that is the case, then why are requests on journalists being delayed beyond 20 days with absolutely no justification? If that is the case, why are we finding out that, in the example of the fourth replacement crossing, there was not a single minute meeting between the minister in charge of that project and its main contractor in the crucial six months from October to March? Not a single minute meeting. If that is the case that you take FOIs seriously, then why are Scottish ministers not sending full written updates to the foreign office after official overseas visits? As per the Scottish Ministerial Code—is that an intervention? I shall carry on. I perhaps heard the word UK Government or Westminster. I am sure that that was the excuse, as always. It is not just me saying that. Rosemary Agnew, the Scottish information officer previously branded this Government's performance simply as totally unacceptable. Those are the words that she used. Earlier this month, we already know that journalists from across the political spectrum, not just from one area or another, all signed a joint letter around this very issue. The laid responses, pure responses and, in some cases, no response at all. What we are asking for today is nothing out of the ordinary. The reason I want other parties in this place to back their motion today is not to make a political point, but to send a really important clear message. The Scottish Government, its ministers, directorates, public bodies and the whole civil service must be open to interrogation, but, more importantly, those responses should be abundant, forthcoming and accurate. However, to be honest, having listened to the minister of spin today, I am afraid that we have a long way to go. Can I have Stewart Stevenson to be followed by Neil Findlay, please? Thank you, Presiding Officer. Let me start by very much welcoming the announcement from the Government that takes public accessibility and the availability of information from FOI requests in official hands to new heights. I want to talk about the Tories, the party that have tabled today's motion. They have not always been the most enthusiastic of supporters of FOI. Stage 1 debate on 17 January 2002, Lord James Douglas Hamilton described the FOI bill as a costly experiment to tinker with a culture of secrecy. He went on the executive seems to be intent on forcing through unnecessary measures. David McLeachie reinforced Tory antipathy to the very concept of an FOI bill by saying, if the bill has been shoved down the list of priorities, the people of Scotland, apart from a few political anoracts, will not shed many tears. I see Murdo Fraser here. He said, this bill does us no credit whatsoever. My contribution to the debate on 17 January I said that a desire to keep information is always an expression of someone's self-interest. I am strongly in favour of freedom of information. To the extent in fact that when officials in the Labour Liberal Executive prepared guidance to civil servants as to how to implement the bill, I was delighted as a result of an FOI to discover that they were quoting from my speeches in the guidance to implement it. In government and subsequently I discovered that the operation act places a proper burden on our public servants, whether employed or elected. One of many ministers in this administration and in previous ones, I found myself responding to a significant number of FOI requests. On many occasions we found that I will, if it is brief please. Johann Lamont It will be brief. Would you accept that people have been driven to go to FOI because of the very poor quality of written answers in this chamber within the resultant lack of transparency? If you get the written answers right, the burden on FOI would not be quite so bad. Stuart Stevenson No. On many occasions we find the information while it is available. It is often dispersed around so many different areas that it can take a very substantial effort to retrieve it, organise it and present it. It was there for the benefit of the administrator, not necessarily for the inquirer. I ceased to be a minister on 6 September 2012, that is nearly five years ago. However, for years after that I was still being asked to confirm the contents of responses to FOIs because they touched on my time as a minister. Under the ministerial code, I am not permitted to retain any ministerial papers. It would be fair to say that a number of the delays that Mayor Copa is down to me as a backbencher is not always responding to civil servants who are looking for confirmation quickly enough. I accept that. It is not something that is yet finished. I am summoned to appear in front of the Irmre tram inquiry. I will have to come down for a full day to be briefed on what I did between 10 and 7 years ago. The reasons why there are delays are very diffuse. Sir Humphrey Apple Bain is not there to protect secrets to the officials. FOI is an important part of the Civic Scotland weaponry to ensure that citizens can hold officials to account. You must close. Can I welcome the Tories' newly found support for FOI? Let's hope that, across all administrations in which they may be involved, they properly implement the principles and practices that are required. Can I say that later speakers' time will be cut if people don't stick to four minutes at the very latest? Neil Findlay, followed by Andy Wightman. There are many areas of government policy where the rhetoric fails to come anywhere near reality, none more so in the area of transparency. That was self-evident to anyone who listened to the member's debate last week. We saw normally obedient SNP backbenchers running for the hills rather than defending the Government's appalling record on secrecy and evasion. That debate came about after 23 experienced journalists represented media outlets with an editorial line that spans the political spectrum, wrote to the Parliament to highlight the abuses and mishandling of freedom of information requests by the Government. I know the member's points. It sounds that he's going to line the same lines as he was last week. Can I ask the member does he accept that last week and again today I've accepted that our performance is not good enough and I've explained some of the actions that we are taking to improve it? Neil Findlay. That was an unprecedented move by the journalists. Highlighting requests being delayed, emails asking for an update being routinely ignored, the gaming of the system to stifle the internal review process, officials taking control of requests to other agencies, requests being blocked for 10 years' reasons and requests being screened by special advisers confirmed by the minister today. All of those actions are designed to block or limit the release of information, but here are more examples. In the month between September and October 2016, Keith Brown met with Ineos at Grangemouth. I asked for a copy of the ministerial briefing that returned heavily redacted. Nicola Sturgeon attended business for Scotland dinner, I requested notes, the guest list and any speech delivered by the First Minister. The Scottish Government said that it had no information. Shirley-Anne Somerville met Paul Little of Glasgow College. No Minutes. Keith Brown meets the SME China Forum. No Minutes. Keith Brown met Philippa Whitford, the MP to discuss Presswick airport. Minutes heavily redacted. Keith Brown met Sir Hugh Akin of the CBI. No Minutes. Keith Brown met Global Scots. I asked for a copy of the minute or the note. No information available. Nicola Sturgeon met with PetroChina to discuss Grangemouth. No Minutes. The briefing redacted to the point that it was meaningless. John Swinney met Sir Kevin Collins, head of the education endowment fund. Exemptions were applied to the pre-minute briefing to prevent its disclosure, and then it was claimed that it was an informal meeting, and no minutes or notes were held. What a farce this is! Those events involve just a few ministers over a very short period of time, and if you scale that up over several months or a year, it would show that those practices have been deployed on an industrial scale. Just three months later, the Minister for Parliamentary Business signed the Scottish Government Open Government Action Plan at an Open Government Conference in Paris. Mr FitzPatrick, without the slightest hint of self-awareness, spoke at an event entitled, Leave No Trace, How to Combat of the Record Government. I have FOI, Mr FitzPatrick's speech, and I cannot wait to read it. Maybe they will block it right enough. Here was the minister who was accountable to this Parliament for the repeated failure to keep and release information. The minister who has seen 23 of our foremost journalists write an open letter of complaint about a very significant area that he has responsibility for lecturing other nations about open government. At least today, in leaving the motion intact, he now condemns his own failings, humility and not normally associated with this Government. This is a minister who could not get a single backbencher to support or defend him last week. He stood there last week, almost naked. Now the final fig leaf has fallen away. Yes, you have left me stuck for words there, Mr Finlay. I have Andy Wightman, followed by Tavish Scott. Thank you, Presiding Officer. It is fair to say that the debate last week certainly confirmed that the issues that have been raised by journalists are valid and urgent. As I am sure all members agree, journalists and citizens need a robust FOI regime in order to hold power account, whether it be in relationship to matters such as recruitment in the NHS, conversations that Government ministers have with authoritarian regimes such as China and Donald Trump's status as a global Scott. I am particularly grateful that the Conservatives have brought this debate today. It provides me with an opportunity to remind members of what FOI can tell us about some of the Conservatives. Mr Henry Angest is a man that I mentioned last week, chairman and chief executive of our Bothment Banking Group, former master of the worshipful company of international bankers, former Tory party treasurer and knighted for his efforts. He provided almost £7 million to the Tory party and was a funder of Atlantic bridge, the charity that funded Adam Wherty's discussions around the world with Liam Foxx. He also provided substantial funds to the Tory party in Scotland, and Murdoff Fraser will ensure no, Mr Angest, who helped fund his doomed leadership bid for the Tory party. He also donated funds to Perth College for research, and we learned through FOI that he was angling for an honorary degree as a reward, but because Perth College retained copyright in the information release and refused to consent to me publishing the information, I am legally compromising my ability to share the information with others. That is one aspect of why FOI regime warrants a fresh look. Conservative members will also, I am sure, welcome the EU's transparency regimes on information that is held by the Scottish Government in relation to the distribution of agricultural subsidies, which allow us to know that a company called Peter Chapman received £104,014 in farm payments in 2012, £114,813 and £101,669 in 2015, and Delfer Farms, which the mover of this motion is a partner, £131,960 in 2015. That is all very interesting. It is relevant and vital and useful information to allow citizens to understand how public money is being spent, how public authorities are discharging their duties on our behalf and how much influence is exerted by private interests in public affairs. Last week, I was happy to do so. Given the information that is disclosed to the chamber, will Mr Wightman welcome a double-jobbing bill that has been brought before this Parliament? Andy Wightman. Andy Wightman. I look forward with interest to a double-jobbing bill and its contents, and I will let the member know of my views on that when it is brought. Last week, the minister acknowledged that we are not where we want to be. I think that most members will concur with that view. I want to commend ministers for not having sought to delete the motion and have recognised the need to address failings in their own performance, as well as the need for post-legislative scrutiny of the act. The welcome attitude sends an important signal beyond the politics here. It is not a party political matter. It is not even just something for the Scottish Government. It is something that is fundamental to democratic society. I respect the Scottish ministers for holding their hands up on this occasion, notwithstanding that substantial concerns remain some of which are highlighted by Alex Rowley. I also want to commend ministers for their decision to publish full logs of information releases. This was a concern raised by Monica Lennon and myself last week, and the Government's response is timely and welcome. In conclusion, I want to raise two matters. Journalists raised many serious issues, none of which have been fundamentally addressed by the minister today, in their letter. I think that the minister, in his opening remarks, confirmed that he would be writing to journalists to address those very specific concerns. If he could confirm that in closing, that would be very welcome. On the proposed disclosure log, there are some concerns about the release of sensitive information simultaneously to requesters such as journalists and to the public at the same time. I would ask the ministers to reflect on whether they consider building perhaps a time lag of a day or two to accommodate such cases. I merely make that as a suggestion. Tavish Scott, to be followed by Richard Lochhead. I am with Andy Wightman in recognising that Joe FitzPatrick, the minister of parliamentary businesses, has come here today to accept the motion in Edwin Mountain's name and to seek to amend it in a fairly mild way rather than seeking to eradicate it. Although, I have to say to Mr Wightman that I think that that is more because he knows that he would lose it where he tried to seek to eradicate the motion altogether rather than anything else. However, I want to concentrate briefly this afternoon on the point in the motion that calls for an independent inquiry. Mr FitzPatrick is quite right. If that was for committees, that would be for the Parliament to decide in the fullness of time. However, what the motion today is calling for is for an independent inquiry, and rightly so is the point that Neil Findlay made in last week's member's debate that he initiated as well. Therefore, what I look to the minister to do in his wind-up this afternoon is not only accept, as he does implicitly, that need for an independent inquiry but set out how that will now be put in place, because that is what now must happen. As Andy Wightman rightly said, the best place to start with that independent inquiry would be the letter that the 23 journalists put their name to earlier in this month. Who better to chair it than, say, Paul Hutchins or Tom Gordon? Other suggestions can gratefully be received by the minister, I am sure. Nevertheless, what I hope today is that the minister in his wind-up will set out that he accepts that inquiry, that there is a process now under way to initiate that inquiry, that it will be independent and that the chair person, whoever that may be, will be very independent indeed. There are two further points that I want to make this afternoon, because they illustrate what needs to be tackled by any review of freedom of information that is taking place at this time. The first is a piece of work that James McEnna is doing on the governance review that the Government announced just the other day. Last night, he illustrated on social media that he had submitted, as a journalist, questions to the Government asking for projected costs, additional funding of support and some other information on additional support needs of the Scottish education system in the context of that governance review. That is entirely fair for a journalist to submit those kind of questions, and he did that and in addition asked a lot of other questions, just as journalists are meant to do to carry out their job. What happened last night is that the Government, instead of answering those questions, turned it into a freedom of information inquiry that will delay it past the summer recess or rather into the summer recess. There will be no answers to the questions that he wants till then, but it begs the question, why did they turn it into a freedom of information request, rather than just answering the questions? There is a long email trail, a long Twitter exchange and all that. In it, the journalist very clearly sets out that he went back to the Government official responsible and said, look, I will take half of this out, I will reduce the questions if they are too detailed. In other words, he bent over backwards as a journalist to recognise that some of the issues could not be answered quickly and would therefore take some time. Oh no, the Scottish Government put it all into freedom of information and then made sure that it will not be answered for 20 days at least. No wonder that some of us are a bit sceptical about the way in which freedom of information is being handled in Scotland today. My other illustration of that is on the point that journalists made about, and I quote, Scottish Government officials taking control of requests to other Government agencies without the consent of the applicant. I have a reply from a former constituent to mine who is an ex-fire officer who has been looking into maintenance queries across the Scottish fire service and, in particular, in the Highlands and Islands. Again, he was refused information under freedom of information because of the cost argument, but it turns out, because he knows about this, because he used to work for the fire service, that the information available was all on a single database and one click of a button would have produced it. So what is going on? This needs to change and an independent inquiry is the way to make sure that it does. I have Richard Lochhead, who is followed by Brian Whittle. There is a joke that you can tell how far a party is from Government by how loudly it calls for robust freedom of information legislation. The point being, of course, that parties of all colours, when they get into government, like to keep certain things secret, and all parties when they are in opposition want maximum transparency and openness. Of course, Tony Blair said in his memoirs in 2010, freedom of information, three harmless words. I look at those words as I write them and feel like shaking my head till it drops off my shoulders. He goes on to say, I used to say more in the little unfairly to any civil servant who would listen, where was her heart hungry when I needed him? We had legislated the first rows of power, how could you, knowing what you know, have allowed us to do such a thing so utterly undermining of sensible government. Of course, that harks back to 97, and the memoirs of 2010, this is 2017, and it is Scotland, not UK. We should be relatively proud of how far we have travelled with devolution in this country in terms of openness, transparency and involving citizens in public life. That is the hallmarks of a healthy democracy. Of course, the outgoing freedom of information commissioner, Rosemary Agnew, said herself in her farewell message, I believe that we generally do well in Scotland. We are not perfect by any means, but we have a strong regime that enables access to a lot of information. The challenge for us all is how we develop FOI from such a strong starting point in a rapidly changing world. She goes on to say again in her report that she issued shortly before departing office that we can tell the respect that we have in this country from what other countries are saying and the frequency with which we are approached to host our visit countries, putting in place FOI for the first time and speak at both national and international events about FOI in Scotland. Globally, we are seeing the contribution access to information approaches are having and supporting transparency, combating corruption, enabling citizens of participation and developing more democratic decision making. There are big issues out there at the moment, and that is why I support having this debate today, such as privacy versus transparency, accuracy and truthfulness in a post-truth environment, trust and confidence to use her words. Tavish Scott said that she would also recognise that Mrs Agnew said in her end of term report that public authorities now put greater emphasis on what not to disclose than on what ought to be released, did she not? Richard Lochhead said that I said that I welcome today's debate in Parliament of this very important issue for our democracy in this country. Of course, she also pointed out and reports in the media have pointed out that 91 per cent of Scottish public bodies publish minutes of key meetings, agendas or strategic plans online, but only 54 per cent provided all three. Those documents were, it said, hard to find 38 per cent of the websites that held them, and only 41 per cent of public organisations put information on procurement and tender contracts online. There are challenges out there, and as a Parliament, as a Government, we have to address that, and that is why I warmly welcome the minister's comments today. She goes on to say, We now know from the data collected since 2013 that FLI request volumes are increasingly year-on-year. That comes with the increasing cost that Scottish public authorities must meet if they are to be statutory compliant. I should say that as someone who has been Cabinet Secretary for nine years, I always took the attitude that we should put the maximum information into the public domain when we received FLI requests. I was also at the same time absolutely staggered by the amount of resources that are required within the Government to answer the FLI requests, the amount of time that key civil servants have to spend on answering those when, of course, there are other priorities that the Government, as demanded by MSPs across all the parties in this chamber, has to deal with, and their real-life pressures the civil service and the Scottish Government face. We have to face up to that reality. I was pleased the FLI information commissioner. She recognised those pressures, and she says that the current system is unsustainable. We have to look at different ways of getting public information into the public domain. I welcome the debate. I hope that we can come back and have other debates about the new ways of getting information into the public domain to take pressure on civil servants and look at other ways as well. I have Brian Whittle to be followed by Clare Adamson. It is an interesting debate to be speaking in today. One would think that legitimate scrutiny of Government by Parliament, the press and the general public would be an essential prerequisite in any open and transparent democracy. Nicola Sturgeon herself stated after taking office that she wanted, and I quote, an outward looking Government that is more open and accessible to Scotland's people than ever before. However, from the evidence that we have heard and are hearing today, those claims are a little bit wide of the mark. In the short time that I have, I thought that I would add my experience of asking FOIs and written questions of this Government. Early on in this Parliament, while speaking in a debate on one of the many Brexit Tuesdays regarding farming, I had the temerity to suggest that we should take the opportunity to look at the Scottish market for Scottish produce. Fergus Ewing stood, puffed out his chest and boomed. Perhaps Mr Whittle should look at the Scottish Excel contract, where the food that councils access is predominantly procured from Scotland. Suitably chastised, I decided to take Mr Ewing up on his suggestion. However, once in that loop of asking questions of the Government, getting answers that avoid answering the question, despite it being very obvious what was being asked in the question, it began to feel very much like Groundhog Day. It is kind of like a war of attrition, finding a different way to ask the same question, trying to elicit a response that is remotely close to the subject of the question. After six months or so, it became very obvious why that question was being avoided and presumably why Mr Ewing and throwing out that challenge at me desperately hoped that I would not take him up on it, because the public procurement Excel contract does in fact not reflect the rosy picture that was painted by the Cabinet Secretary of Locally Procured Highly Quality projects. However, after highlighting that oversight of the Cabinet Secretary, his colleague John Swinney instigated an investigation into the nutritional value of food in schools. Fantastic. I took the opportunity to write to the Cabinet Secretary for Health to ask her if she would follow suit with an investigation into the quality of food being seven hospitals, and would she commit to looking at procuring locally from farmers? The answer that I got was that she was satisfied with the quality of food in her hospitals, and that the procuring local produce was subject to European procurement law. That answer obviously hopes that neither I nor my colleagues understand European procurement law, which I do, and therefore I know that that was a ridiculous answer. Secondly, and correct me if my geography is a ray here, Thailand is not in Europe, nor is India, or South America, or New Zealand, or the Far East, where a fair chunk of the food imports into the Excel contracts come from. It is not just about the avoidance of transparency in scrutiny that is the issue here, it is about also not taking the time to answer questions with a degree of respect the coming of a Government. The most recent question that I asked was regarding the value of public procurement of IT projects in the last 10 years, and the percentage of that spend on Scottish companies. The very helpful answer that I received from Derek Mackay and I quote, that information is not held centrally. So the finance secretary apparently does not know how much public money is spent on the procurement of public IT projects and how much of that public money is invested in Scottish companies. Really, does not know or does not want to say? So let us go on that roundabout again and ask the same question in a different way. Presiding Officer, this is not a game of hide the facts and say as little as possible. We are talking about the proper public scrutiny of our Government. The members of this Parliament are here at the request of the Scottish public and are therefore accountable to the Scottish public. If a question is asked of the Scottish Government, it is a categorical right to expect that it will answer openly, honestly, words and all, and ensure that the Government can be held fully to account for the action that it takes on behalf of those whom this Parliament serves. This is obviously not the current situation and therefore the status quo cannot remain. The last of the open debate speakers is Claire Adamson. Thank you Presiding Officer. I open by declaring her interest as being a member of the National Union of Journalists. Presiding Officer, last week I was listening to the member's debate and I am quite disappointed that the Tories have chosen to use this precious time in the chamber to reiterate some of the arguments that were given and answered last week by the Government. Indeed, this is a week in which we are in the Brexit negotiations with absolutely no openness or transparency from the Westminster Government about how that is going to go. It is a week in which it has elevated someone rejected by the voters to the position in the House of Lords in order that they can take up a ministerial position in the Scottish office. I failed to see where the openness and transparency and democracy are at the heart of these decisions at all. Can we put this in context? The Scottish Government in 2016 was designated as a global leaping light in the campaign for open and accessible government as one of the pioneer members of the open government partnerships inaugural international substantial government programme. This government has the most advanced free of information laws in the UK. The information commissioner has said that, since Scotland introduced the Freedom of Information Scotland Act 2002, it has put itself ahead of the international field. That is the context in which we discuss those issues. Last week, I heard the Government admit that it is not performing as well as it could be. I also heard the Government commit to working with those who had raised concerns, including the journalist. Indeed, I am sure that the cabinet secretary said that he had written to Paul Halloran at the National Union of Journalists offering to work with them and other journalists about their concerns in this area. The Scottish Government is already working with the information commissioner to improve this issue. I hear the calls for an inquiry here. Let's be absolutely clear that this is a legal matter. The commissioner has a very powerful job and could have taken legal action against the Government but has chose not to do so because the Government is working to improve the situation with the information commissioner. I am sure that it will continue to do with the new information commissioner on appointment. The Government has conceded that things could be better. It is working to improve it. I failed to say why the other members in the chamber cannot recognise those commitments from the Government. The outgoing commissioner put into the public domain a hard document proactive publication, a time for rethink, in which she examines where we are in terms of freedom of information in the UK. She says that it is doubtful that the FOI in its current form is sustainable. We now know from the data collected since 2013 that request volumes are increasing year on year. That comes with increasing cost that Scottish public authorities must meet if they are able to be statutory compliant. Proactive publication is important but it will not deliver in its own change. Proactive publication, championed by the Government, is working to ensure that freedom of information requests are no longer required because the information in the public domain is certainly changing the way things are happening and we will move things forward. I welcome the opportunity at all times to debate those issues. I think that today the only fig leaf in the chamber has been on the part of the Tories who want to deflect from the utter shambles that is happening in Westminster at this time. We now move to the closing speeches. I call Pauline McNeill to be followed by Derek Mackay. Will I, for one, be quite happy to use the precious time of this Scottish Parliament to discuss something that is fundamental not just to journalists but to ordinary people who want to challenge secrecy and power in this society? I am sorry that Clare Adamson has made many excellent speeches in this chamber but I have to say clear that that is not one of them. If you do not recognise that people want their politicians, albeit in opposition, to challenge the Government of the day on their failings, then I think that that is quite sad. So rightly so the Government have accepted a wrap over the knuckles for their poor performance and we have got to give them some credit for that. However, I hope that the minister will accept that it is more simply than poor performance because it is about the handling of the freedom of information act. It is a charge of failing to operate it in transparency with holding information unnecessarily. I hope that the Government accepts that it is a much wider and more serious charge than simply poor performance. I would like to put on record, in fact. I thought that Davish would, but Jim Wallace was the champion of this act to his credit and the coalition Government introduced it. The right to no legislation allowing any citizen to simply ask for information held by the Government. It came about because of a growing dissatisfaction with secrecy surrounding Government, policy development and decision making. It is an integral part of the human rights legislation and is recognised by article 59 of the UN Charter. Indeed, I do not think that there has never been an important time to embrace the idea, notwithstanding some of the excellent points that Richard Lochhead has made, that maximum possible public disclosure of information by public bodies is, I think, the principle that we should all be striving for. The Westminster scandal of 2010, which was itself the centre of very early FOI requests, led to the lowest figures of public confidence in politicians. We all have a responsibility to open up Government. However, who do we compare ourselves to? I heard Jo Fitzpatrick use in defence of our intervention by my colleague Neil Findlay. I do not really want to compare ourselves to what is happening in the rest of the UK. I would rather compare Scotland's legislation to the other 100 countries that have excellent freedom of information. However, in a sense, it does not really matter if it was better at the time. What matters is not worth the paper that it is written on. If the Government of the day sets out to undermine it by delay, lobbying Governments—I mean, it is kind of, if it is certainly, fundamental to the Labour Party—the lobby industry is a multi-million-pound industry. Powerful people sit with ministers and they have the ear of those ministers. I am not condemning that. However, because of that, the issues that colleagues around the chamber talk about were journalists have tried to get to the bottom. I do not expect every meeting to be minited in absolute detail, but I do expect there to be a minute available, certainly where there is any lobby organisation that has money and power behind it. I close, Presiding Officer, by asking the Cabinet Secretary if he could just clarify that you are supporting the substantive motion tonight. Does that mean therefore that the Government is supporting the independent review of the freedom of information act? My apologies for earlier confusion. It is Jo FitzPatrick that I call now. I am not sure what to make of the reaction from the chamber to the picture that Neil Finlay painted of me standing naked in the chamber. I will try and work that out later. In my opening comments, I acknowledged that FY performance of the Scottish Government is not good enough. I outlined measures that we are taking to improve our performance, and I think that it was wider than just timeliness if you read what I was saying. We genuinely believe in freedom of information and we want to improve that and we want to improve the experiences, which is why I am meeting with the NUGA to try and understand what their concerns are and how we can improve. I have a lot to cover. I am sorry. I believe that our proposals to publish FY responses, along with information made available in response to FY requests, is a significant step forward and demonstrates the Government's commitment to open that. A number of points were made by a few helpful speeches in the chamber. I want to put in particular response to the ones that I thought were made by people who were not just here to have a go at the Government. I will try to respond to some of the points in the debates, so thank you very much. Tavish Scott made a particular point about a request being turned into a formal request, and that is because the legislation requires us to treat any written request for information. As an FRI request, we have no option in that, but that is maybe the sort of thing that I can discuss with the NUGA just to try and understand how we get that, because I can under the stand the explanation of that. Excuse me a moment, Mr FitzPatrick. Could you make sure that you speak to the microphone? Sorry, sorry. I am going to try to respond to the points in that. Mr Finlay ignored my intervention entirely, so I think that I am going to try to focus on the points of people who made remarks in the chamber. Mr Scott also talked about the concern that was in the letter of the Scottish Government in taking over requests to other bodies. As I said in my speech, that is just not the fact that it would be against the law to do that. Public bodies handle their own requests. I think that perhaps to understand it is that the Scottish Government and its agencies, which does not incidentally include the fire service, are regarded as one authority, one public authority for the purpose of FOISA. That might be where there is some misunderstanding there on that point. I am going to, as I said, continue to try to get through the substantive points that people make. Tavish Scott, Alex Rowley and Andy Wightman all talked about independent inquiry. The information commissioner, as Clare Adamson said, is the legally obliged person who is in charge of FOI. They have a very important role. They are independently appointed by this Parliament and it is their role. They have started that process of looking at our processes to make sure that we get it right. I am sure that that will continue with the new information commissioner and I am certainly happy to engage with the new commissioner once they are appointed to discuss what further should be done in terms of making our FOI regime more transparent. Andy Wightman talked about his comments last week and Monica Lennon's data logs. Contrary to some of the conspiracy theories that have been roaming around Twitter, it was very much in response to the points that Monica Lennon and Andy Wightman made last week that persuaded us of the merit of publishing all FOI releases on our website. I think that that is the correct thing to do. I will take on board the point that Andy Wightman made about the timeliness of that. That is something that we can specifically look at. Stuart Stevenson has always put a very historic angle on today's debate, historic context, and I thought that that was helpful to remind us that it was not that long ago that legislation came into effect and there are still people in this Parliament who are very much part of that. I acknowledge the role that Mr Wallace had in bringing that legislation forward. It may have been a challenging thing. I know that Tony Blair, after bringing forward similar legislation in the UK, said that his biggest regret was to introduce the freedom of information legislation information in the UK. To conclude, I hope that colleagues realise that this Government really does have a serious take FOI and open government seriously. Our culture is one of openness across Scotland. Our open data strategy sets out our high-level guidance principles to support making data open. We will continue to look at how we can improve our performance and the access to information that is going forward. I call Graeme Simpson to close this debate up to six minutes, please, Mr Simpson. Thank you very much. This has been a good debate but one that we brought with a collective heavy heart. That it was felt necessary to bring this motion to Parliament is testament to the way that this Government treats its citizens with disdain and derision. Last week, there was a member's debate on the subject with no contribution from the SNP, saved from a rambling and embarrassing performance by the minister, Joe Fitzpatrick. Clare Adamson was clearly watching something else. I can tell Clare Adamson that there was palpable anger after that performance, and that is what led to this debate today. I want to pick up something that Mr Fitzpatrick said right at the start of the debate, and it is quite concerning. He seemed to be suggesting that the very fact that we have an information commissioner means in his words that there is an on-going independent inquiry. That is not what this motion is calling for, certainly. Joe Fitzpatrick. Just to be clear, what I said was that the information commissioner's actions were an independent inquiry. The information commissioner is independent, and the information commissioner is taking action after having looked at our performance, and that is an on-going process. Her actions are not an independent inquiry. What this motion calls for is something entirely different. It is separate from the information commissioner. That is what Parliament will be voting on. It is encouraging that the Scottish Government has accepted the need for that review and for post-legislative scrutiny, but it has been dragged, kicking and screaming to that point. The background to the debate is, of course, the open letter signed by 23 journalists expressing grave concerns about the way FOI has been handled by this Government. That was mentioned by Neil Findlay, Alex Rowley and Jamie Greene. As Edward Mountain said in his opening speech, they complained of information requests being repeatedly delayed beyond the 20-day deadline, emails asking for updates being ignored, delays leading to appeals to the Scottish Information Commissioner, requests being blocked for tenuous reasons and being screened for political damage. We had it confirmed just earlier that special advisers are involved in that process. They called for a review and, in our demand for an inquiry, so do we, as well as post-legislative scrutiny, a transparency double lock. Against this background, it may surprise Parliament to learn that the Scottish Government believes that it is a beacon of transparency and that we have in Scotland something called an open Government national action plan. The problem that we have here is that giving evasive answers is in this Government's DNA. I ask colleagues, for example, as Brian Whittle has given some today, as has Jamie Greene, but here is a stonker from Liam Kerr to ask the Scottish Government what the budgeted on-going costs were for Edinburgh Gateway station and what the actual on-going maintenance costs have been. Mr Kerr got an enlightening reply from Humza Yousaf. The operational and maintenance costs for individual stations on the ScotRail network is commercially sensitive information. One of our researchers asked under FOI for information about work done on Scotland and Brexit. There were four lengthy questions. If Mr Stevenson can stop chuntering, I will get on with my speech. Essentially asking for details of meetings and correspondence on the potential implications of the UK leaving the EU on Scotland's long-run economic performance. The answer is that we do not have those records. That has been the modus operandi of this Government when dealing with questions. The way freedom of information is treated by this Government amounts to censorship worthy of a totalitarian state, but I suppose why would a Government be open with its people when it thinks it is the people? Maybe recent democratic events will help to sway them of that delusory state of mind. When the FOI Act became law, we might have thought that we in Scotland were being advanced, not so. Scotland is a comparatively recent convert to FOI with the world's first freedom of information law happening in Sweden in 1766. The Scottish Public Information Forum, which was meant to enable the long-term effectiveness of freedom of information and the environmental information Scotland regulations, did not meet for over six years from 2010 until being reconvened by the campaign for freedom of information Scotland. It will next meet on 28 September international right to know day. I am not sure if the Scottish Government is celebrating that day. We on these benches welcome the Scottish Government's new commitment to publishing all information released on the freedom of information. The test will still be how quickly answers are given and whether the cloak of secrecy surrounds them. The SNP Government has only responded to 38 per cent of FOI requests with a full release of the information requested. They need to do better. Finally, I would like to remind the chamber of the words of the then Deputy First Minister, Jim Wallace, mentioned by Pauline McNeill, during the 2002 debate on the freedom of information bill. He said that information is the currency of an open democratic society. Mr Wallace was right in 2002 that we now need a Government that holds to his words. That concludes the debate on freedom of information requests. Before we move on to the next item of business, I remind members that they should always be polite even when they revert to name calling. I will give you a couple of minutes for members to move their possessions.