LOCAL MP'S URGED TO SIGN UP TO CAMPAIGN AGAINST SECRECY BILL (Kirklees Liberal Democrats)

Kirklees Liberal Democrats <info@kirkleeslibdems.org.uk>

LOCAL MP'S URGED TO SIGN UP TO CAMPAIGN AGAINST SECRECY BILL

June 5, 2007 5:56 PM

Cllr Kath Pinnock, Leader of the Kirklees Liberal Democrat Group, has called on Kirklees MP's to oppose the Conservative led Bill to exempt MPs from Freedom of Information laws.

LOCAL MP'S URGED TO SIGN UP TO CAMPAIGN AGAINST SECRECY BILL

In a letter Cllr Kath Pinnock has sent to Shahid Malik MP and Mike Wood MP she says about the Conservative led proposal:

"This has to be one of the most outrageous proposals ever put before Parliament. MPs and Lords are the very people who introduced this important legislation to give people a right to know what public bodies and public servants, paid from the public purse, are doing and saying, and how they are spending public money. The idea that they might pass a new law to specifically exempt themselves from its effects will strike most people as utter hypocrisy."

Cllr Kath Pinnock commenting elsewhere (not in the letter):

"This self-serving and hypocritical bill is doing further damage to the already tarnished reputation of MPs and politicians".

"It is vital that this rotten bill is thrown out. Mike Wood and Shahid Malik cannot sit on the fence on this issue. Just one of the Labour MPs in Kirklees found the time to attend the crucial Commons on the 18th May to vote against the bill. I personally call on the two MPs in North Kirklees - along with Kali Mountford and Mary Creagh - to similarly declare their opposition to this self serving secrecy bill. They can achieve this by joining the all-party support being given for the proposal led by Liberal Democrat MP Simon Hughes. A large number of MPs backing his motion could help persuade the Lords to kill off the pro-secrecy bill when it goes before them in the next few weeks."