SIR - I note with interest Mike Foster's letter about freedom of information (May 24) and find his very narrow focus rather disingenuous - I suspect there's more to this than meets the eye.
A softening-up process is what I suspect is going on. And already I hear on news programmes that the Government is talking of the problems the Freedom of Information Act causes them in creating policy.
A freedom of information consultation paper prepared in Jersey in March 2003 makes for interesting reading. In comparing various countries' laws it comments on the UK: "A brief comparison (of the UK Freedom of Information Act) with the original Government White Paper reveals an Act considerably reduced in its ambition... It appears that the present UK Government, initially committed to the principle of freedom of information, seems rather more reluctant to release information now it has have been in power for five years."
Now, after 10 years, there are all the signs that the Government is moving to ditch as much of it as it can, and is also bleating about messing around with the Human Rights Act.
Trust this Government? Not on your life!
John Mahoney, Worcester.
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