Speaker Michael Martin uses 319-year-old law to gag reports on the failing ID card scheme
Court fight: Commons Speaker Michael Martin
Commons speaker Michael Martin is using a 319-year-old law designed to protect freedom of speech to try to stop the publication of Home Office reports on the failing ID card scheme.
Lawyers for Mr Martin appeared unexpectedly at a High Court hearing last week aiming to prevent potentially damaging internal assessments being published under the Freedom of Information Act.
And onlookers were astonished when they argued that the Home Office documents should be kept secret under "parliamentary privilege" – a law created in the 1689 Bill of Rights to protect MPs from prosecution over anything they say or do in Parliament.
The latest twist in the dispute over ID cards occurred as the Government was appealing against an Information Commissioner's Office decision to publish the 'gateway' reviews, which monitor and assess the ID scheme's chance of success.
Mr Martin's lawyers, led by Martin Chamberlain, joined the Government team to back their argument.
The decision to release the documents was based largely on a 2004 parliamentary select committee report that said the Government should be more open.
However, Mr Chamberlain claimed the Government could not question the report's contents in the High Court as it was produced by MPs. On that technicality, he provided arguments that the papers be kept secret.
Computer journalist Tony Collins, who has been campaigning to get the documents published, said: "The Speaker's lawyers are trying to stop the publication of papers that could damage the argument for ID cards on a crazy technicality dating back more than 300 years."
Last week, the £5.6billion ID card scheme was delayed until 2012 following protests about ever-increasing personal data on Government databases.
Mr Collins has fought a three-year battle to publish the reviews. He suspects they would deal a "hammer blow" to the scheme, which has been dogged by rising costs and fears over the security of sensitive information.
The Government has rejected several Freedom of Information requests for publication. But eventually the Information Tribunal – which hears appeals from notices issued by the Information Commissioner's Office – decided they should be disclosed in the "public interest".
Last week the Government took the unprecedented step of taking the fight to the High Court.
Last night Martin Bell, the former independent MP and anti-sleaze campaigner, said: "There is a clear public interest in the release of these documents. People are tired of the Government hiding behind walls of secrecy."
A former Cabinet Minister and lawyer who reviewed the case for The Mail on Sunday said Mr Martin's attempts to "gag" The Information Commissioner's Office were unlikely to work.
He said: "His parliamentary privilege objection seems to me entirely fanciful and unlikely to succeed.' Last night a spokesman for Mr Martin said:
"This has nothing to do with the Speaker personally.
"The arguments are put on behalf of the House of Commons."
